Photographer: Cheryl
True, I love going by train.
True, for a period of ten years our family used this train,
for half the distance.
Good memories!
So I am not objective about this subject.
Back then it would take more than ten hours to go the
whole distance. Now it takes a little more than seven hours.
In 1894 it was decided to build a railroad between Oslo
and Bergen - an expensive and difficult project,
but important for connecting the eastern part of
Norway with the western part, over land, using
what was then fairly new technology.
The official opening of the whole distance was 100 years
ago. Parts of the line had been in use earlier, a fact I had not
thought about before seeing a fantastic documentary
following one trip from Bergen to Oslo, minute by minute.
The documentary produced by NRK is called
"Bergensbanen, minutt for minutt".
Three cameras in the front ( straight forward, to the right,
to the left) and one mobile camera inside the train. This
last camera was used to interview passengers and crew,
and sometimes got off for the short stops on the stations.
Few comments, but many songs and musical
parts connected to trains and to the places we passed.
Loved most of those!
When the train entered the numerous tunnels we were
shown the name of the tunnel and the length, and if it was
one of the longer ones , we enjoyed old film documentaries
and old radioprograms connected to Bergensbanen.
Looking at the passing scenery from this specific trip
made in the beginning of October 2009, it was
fascinating to see the milder climate closer to Bergen and
Oslo, and then the snow up in the mountains.
Sounds boring?
I have enjoyed it very much, and if they decide to sell
a DVD of the program, I think I will buy it.
Surprise:
In February 2010 I discovered you can download
it for free from
This version does NOT include music, video,
side camera, interviews that we saw in the
original TV program.
You can also get a seven minutes taste
PS. From comments on the internet, at least two
viewers , out of more than one million Norwegian
viewers, claim that when the train finally arrived at
Oslo S, they got up from their chair to leave the train ............
No comments:
Post a Comment