Passenger Rail

Trains continue to engross Slow Summer viewers

Photo: SBS

Australia and New Zealand’s rail industry is receiving positive PR from a rather unexpected source: three-hour, dialogue-free documentaries featuring footage from the most iconic passenger journeys are transfixing SBS viewers across the nation.

Known as ‘Slow TV’, the unique format began in 2009, when Norway’s national broadcasting corporation showed a seven-hour train journey between Bergen and Oslo, as part of the 100-year anniversary of the Bergen Line.

Bergensbanen – minutt for minutt featured interior and exterior footage from four cameras, along with interviews with drivers, crew and historians, and was watched by roughly 20 per cent of the Norwegian population.

Follow up Slow TV from Norway included other iconic train journeys, knitting, animal observations and boat trips, including 2011’s Hurtigruten – minutt for minutt, a 134-hour live event covering the voyage of the MS Nordnorge from Bergen to Kirkenes.

Australia’s SBS network got in on the action last year, producing The Ghan, a three-hour documentary of the journey between Adelaide and Darwin, combining new footage with archival imagery to tell the story of the journey and its history.

The Ghan was an instant hit, with an average of 583,000 viewers reported, and social media ablaze over not only how fascinating a concept Slow TV was, but how interested they had become in the train journey itself.

Viewers were again engrossed by Slow TV on January 6, 2019, with Indian Pacific, the broadcaster’s return to the format. The three-hour film, this time covering the iconic train trip from Perth to Sydney, again fascinated social media.

https://twitter.com/LeesaMarkussen/status/1081894898205220866

 

Three hours wasn’t enough for some viewers: On January 12, SBS ran a 17-hour version of Indian Pacific on its secondary VICELAND channel.

SBS will also run an all-day version of The Ghan on January 26 on VICELAND.

This year’s Slow TV from SBS will also include The Kimberley Cruise, a boat trip from Broome to Darwin, All Aboard! The Canal Trip, along England’s Kennet and Avon Canal, and North to South, an epic journey from Auckland to New Zealand’s South Island, by rail, boat, and road.

KiwiRail gets in on it

New Zealand TV network Prime will also join the Slow TV party, producing, in partnership with KiwiRail, Go South, a 12-hour journey from Auckland to Milford.

Viewers will travel on the Northern Explorer from Auckland to Wellington, cross the Cook Strait on Interislander, take the Coastal Pacific from Picton to Christchurch and cross the Southern Alps to the West Coast on the TranzAlpine.

“The return of the Coastal Pacific in December connected the dots between Picton and Christchurch, and increasing numbers of customers are booking the entire journey from Auckland through to Greymouth,” KiwiRail head of tourism and marketing Ahleen Rayner said.

“Worldwide, there has been a resurgence in demand for immersive journeys, and it’s definitely something we’ve seen reflected here in New Zealand. Last summer we experienced a record tourism season and we’re expecting similar results this year.

“To capture the footage, special cameras were positioned throughout our ferries and trains, including the cabs of our locomotives – meaning viewers also have the unique opportunity of seeing what our drivers see.”