A train for early starts
Linha do Vale’s new 5:40 runs for nurses, bakers and cleaners who start work before the first bus. The railway wanted those riders to notice it, and the timetable posters weren’t doing that.
Forty minutes and a fog machine
The station gave us the platform from 4:50 until the cleaners arrived. We borrowed a fog machine from a theatre in Porto, cast six passengers from the line’s own staff and filmed the 5:40’s headlights coming through on its real timetable. There was no second take: the train only comes once.
On the platform since
The film plays on the station screens before dawn. Early ridership on the line rose by a fifth in the first winter.
