DaybyDay ISSN 1860-2967Record attempt: Longest train journey in the EU
Wer aufmerksam diesen ausführlichen Bericht liest, wird feststellen, dass auf der Wegstrecke von Kemijärvi in Finnland bis Lagos in Portugal die Deutsche Bahn besser wegkommt, als es ihr Ruf nahelegen würde:
In other words, Germany might cause plenty of disruption, but it also copes better with disruption than pretty much any other country.
Es folgt der Film von Rick Minnich, auf den er über eine persönlich adressierte Mail mit diesen Worten aufmerksam gemacht hat:
It all started when English railroad expert Jon Worth told me that he was going to attempt to set a world record for the longest train journey in the European Union. Would I like to come along and film it? How could I possibly say no?
A few weeks later, we were up above the Arctic Circle at the end of the Finnish railway line in Kemijärvi, only 80 km from the Russian border. If all went well, we would arrive in Lagos, Portugal 100 hours and 6200 km later.
Naturally, some things didn’t go as expected. We got across the newly re-opened railroad crossing between Tornio (Finland) and Haparanda (Sweden), which only recently made this trip possible, but then we got stuck for twenty-four hours due to a downed power line.
But this wasn’t so bad because it gave us time to catch up on the rich history of this area, and to visit Tornio station. Here a plaque commemorates Lenin’s visit on his way from Zürich to Petrograd in April 1917 to launch the Russian Revolution. Over the following days, we retraced much of Lenin’s original route, but in reverse.
My six days traveling and filming with Jon was one of the most exhilarating filming adventures I’ve had so far. 6200 km, eight countries and twenty-three trains in six days, all made possible with the generous support of Interrail, which provided us with 30-day rail passes in 1st class. Thanks!
The rest of the story you can watch for yourselves on the YouTube channel Simply Railway. This is the first collaboration of this kind for me. I filmed the entire journey with Jon, and turned over the footage to Simply Railway to edit. The entire production lasted a mere two weeks. Not bad considering some of my films have taken up to twelve years to make!