在德国，人们对于火车晚点的吐槽奇招百出。一位慕尼黑阿姨通过织围巾来记录每天火车的晚点情况。15日，这条“德国铁路晚点”围巾在网上竟拍出7550欧元的高价。阿姨决定将拍卖所得捐给慈善机构。

A scarf knitted by a German woman to document her frustrations with frequent train delays has sold for €7,550 on eBay, as the country’s biggest railway company announces plans for a punctuality tsar.

德国一位女士把火车频繁晚点的情况全部织到了一条围巾上面，以表达她的不满。日前，这条围巾在eBay网站上拍出了7550欧元（约合5.81万元人民币）的高价。同时，德国最大的铁路公司宣布将任命一位“准点专员”。

punctuality [,pʌŋktjʊ'ælɪtɪ]：n.严守时间

“德国铁路晚点”围巾

现在就来为这个经典设计开一个产品说明会吧：纯手工制作、精心打磨、每天只打两行！

The “rail delay scarf” came to prominence when Sara Weber, a journalist, posted a photo of it on Twitter earlier this month. Her mother, a commuter in the Munich area, knitted two lines a day in 2018 to represent how long she was delayed for, she explained.

这位德国阿姨的女儿萨拉·韦伯是一名记者，韦伯本月初将“火车晚点围巾”的图片发在推特上，得到了极大反响。她解释说，母亲生活在慕尼黑地区，乘坐火车上下班，2018年，她每天都会织上两行，来代表当天火车晚点的情况。

The scarf is color-coded: grey wool meant her delay had been less than five minutes, pink signified delays of between five and 30 minutes, while red meant she was delayed for more than 30 minutes or had been delayed both ways.

围巾用不同颜色代表晚点情况：当火车晚点少于5分钟时，她会用灰色线织；当火车晚点5到30分钟之间时，用粉色线织；当火车晚点超过30分钟、或者上下班都遭遇火车晚点时，用红色线织。

“In the spring, everything was OK. Lots of grey and pink,” Weber wrote. “Then for a while it was all red: rail replacement traffic throughout the summer.”

“春天的时候，火车晚点情况看起来还可以，围巾大部分都是灰色和粉色，”莎拉写道，“但是后来它开始变成了大片的红色：那是由于整个夏天都在更换铁轨。”

每月要花超过175欧元的月票，却得到了这样的服务，难怪阿姨花了6卷毛线织出了自己的囧途。

The scarf, approximately 1.5 meters long, represented many Germans’ frustrations with train delays, despite their country’s reputation abroad for efficiency and punctuality.

这条围巾有大约1.5米长，代表着很多德国人对火车晚点的不满，尽管德国在海外以高效和准时著称。

After it went viral on social media, Weber and her mother decided to auction the scarf off for charity; as of Monday morning, bidding for the scarf had reached more than €3,600, before more than doubling in its final hours on the site.

这条围巾在社交媒体走红后，韦伯和母亲决定把它放在网上拍卖，并将拍卖所得捐给慈善机构。截至周一早上，竞标价格已经涨至3600欧元，而在拍卖结束前的最后几个小时里，价格又翻了一倍多。

在德国，乘坐轨道交通（区域列车或者市郊快速列车）上班的人不在少数。一份调查结果显示，2016年德国远距离上下班往返的人群比例就已达到上班总人数的60%，其中很多人需要乘德铁运营的轨道交通，而这一数据随着大中型城市市区房价上涨会越来越多。

The continuing delays have led the German railway company Deutsche Bahn to appoint Ronald Pofalla, DB’s head of infrastructure, as crisis manager to improve its punctuality record.

德国火车频繁晚点使得德国联邦铁路公司任命基础设施主管罗纳德·珀法拉为危机经理，提高准点率。

Roughly one-quarter of all trains and one-third of long-distance trains were late in 2018 — a far cry from the days when 95% of German trains ran on time. For 2019, Deutsche Bahn has set an on-time goal of 80% of all trains and 76.5% of long-distance trains.

2018年，德国大约有四分之一的火车和三分之一的长途火车晚点，这与德国曾经高达95%的火车准点率相去甚远。2019年，德国联邦铁路公司制定了一个目标，希望全部火车的准点率达到80%，长途火车准点率达到76.5%。

far cry：差别悬殊

Proceeds from the scarf will go to Bahnhofsmission, a charity helping vulnerable passengers or those facing travel emergencies.

围巾拍卖所得将被捐给帮助弱势乘客或者在旅途中遇到紧急状况乘客的慈善机构“车站使命团”。

vulnerable [ˈvʌlnərəbl]：adj. 易受攻击的，易受伤害的

这条围巾的照片发布仅仅一天，就收到过万点赞，网友称赞阿姨这种方式比起在德铁官网投诉、在网上发几句牢骚，更直观夺目。红色也用得恰到好处，因为它正是德铁标志的颜色。

“We truly did not expect this,” Weber wrote on the eBay page. “My mother and I are overwhelmed by the positive feedback.”

“我们之前完全没想到，”萨拉在eBay网页上写道，“我和妈妈几乎要被网友们的热情反馈淹没了。”