The unique, but productive, way one German commuter documented her travel delays to and from the office
ADVERTISEMENTThe go-to response for many commuters hit by regular travel delays might be to send an exasperated text to colleagues and loved ones, or an apology to your boss, before firing off an angry tweet to a specific travel company.
But one German commuter had an original, and very productive, use of her extra platform time — knitting a scarf for every delay she encounters.
Journalist Sara Weber said her mother, a commuter in the Munich area, is an "avid knitter."
So much so that she knitted a colour coordinated scarf, dubbed the "rail delay scarf," to represent the different lengths of delays she experienced.
She knitted "two rows per day," Weber said. She chose "grey for [delays] under five minutes, pink between five and 30 minutes delay, and red if delayed on both trips, or one trip by over 30 minutes."
The scarf has a very large patch of unbroken red, which tells its own story.
"In the spring, everything was ok," Sarah said. "Lots of grey and pink. Then everything was red for a while: rail replacement traffic throughout summer."
"It didn't take 40 minutes per trip, but just under two hours. Every day. For six and a half weeks," she said.
And the travel chaos for Weber's mother didn't end there.
"She hoped it would get better by the end of the year," Weber said. "But, again, lots of red," before listing more, all too familiar, reasons for travel delays.
What has since happened to the scarf?
Weber's story has since taken social media by storm, with the original tweet receiving more than 22,000 likes, and being shared just over 6,000 times.
After discovering how popular her scarf had become, Weber's mother listed it on Ebay, where she said the proceeds would be donated to charity.
At the time of writing, the scarf has reached €1,510 with several days left before the end of the auction.
Bahnhofsmission, a charity helping vulnerable passengers at German train stations and the future recipient of the scarf's proceeds, posted on Facebook saying it was "very happy" with the donation.