German train-delay scarf sells for €7,550
January 14, 2019
A scarf knitted by a German woman to represent how long she was delayed on trains run by German rail company Deutsche Bahn sold for €7,550 ($8,660) on eBay on Monday.
There were 134 bids from 45 bidders for the 1.5-meter (5 foot) scarf, which was knitted over the course of 2018 and features stripes in different colors, to represent different-length delays.
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Journalist Sara Weber, the scarf maker's daughter, said her mother was a commuter in the Munich area and had knitted two rows per day: Gray for under five minutes, pink for 5-30 minutes, and red for delays of more than 30 minutes or when both of her trains were running late.
Weber posted a photo of the scarf on Twitter and the response was so enthusiastic that she and her mother decided to auction it and give the proceeds to the charity Bahnhofsmission, which assists people in need at railway stations across Germany.
On Monday, Weber tweeted that the scarf had been sold for €7,550.
"My mum is very happy — and so am I. We never would have expected that would happen," Weber wrote.
On Sunday, Deutsche Bahn (DB), Europe's largest rail operator, announced it had appointed a punctuality tsar to tackle continual delays of its train services, German newspaper Bild am Sonntag reported.
In 2018, one in four trains were delayed and more than a third of its high-speed ICE services ran late, the company admitted in August.