Munich commuter knits colour-coded scarf illustrating extent of rail delays
Frustrated passenger’s scarf has drawn attention to rail service Deutsche Bahn’s persistent delays.
A Munich commuter using Germany’s Deutsche Bahn service has knitted a special scarf that illustrates the extent of rail delays.
Pictures of the scarf were shared on Twitter by the woman’s daughter Sara Weber.
She explained that the different colours represented how long she was forced to wait: dark grey for less than five minutes, pink for five to 30 minutes, and red for over thirty minutes, or a delay on both trips in a day.
The rail company, which on Thursday announced plans to hire 22,000 more staff, then bought the hand-made scarf in an online auction for €7,550 euros (around £6,650). The money is being donated to a charity for the homeless.
Ms Weber said: “Everything was okay in the spring. A lot of grey and pink. Then everything was red for a while: rail replacement services, the whole summer holidays long. It did not take 40 minutes per ride, but just under two hours. Every day. For six and a half weeks.”
Ms Weber’s mother allegedly used more than six balls of wool, only half of which was grey.
She said: “She hoped it would get better by the end of the year. But again a lot of red.”
The scarf drew widespread attention on social media, reflecting Deutsche Bahn customers’ frustration at the company’s persistent delays.
It was reported that less than three quarters of Deutsche Bahn’s long-distance trains arrived on time last year.
