Swedish Train Drivers Wore Skirts to Beat a Shorts Ban — And Their Clever Protest Changed the Rules

In the summer of 2013, commuters traveling on a suburban railway north of Stockholm began noticing something unusual.

Several male train drivers and conductors were arriving for work in skirts.

They were not wearing costumes. They were not breaking company rules. In fact, they were following those rules exactly.

And that was the point.

The employees worked on Stockholm’s Roslagsbanan railway, a narrow-gauge commuter line serving communities north and northeast of the Swedish capital. Earlier that year, transport operator Arriva had taken over operation of the line and introduced uniform rules that allowed employees to wear either long trousers or skirts.

Shorts, however, were not permitted.

That became a problem when summer temperatures climbed and the inside of train cabs became extremely hot. One driver said temperatures could exceed 35 degrees Celsius — about 95 degrees Fahrenheit — on sunny days.

So a group of male employees found a solution that was simultaneously practical, perfectly legal under the dress code and impossible for management to ignore.

They put on the company-approved skirts.

What began as a local disagreement over summer uniforms quickly became an international news story. Within days, photographs and reports of Swedish male railway workers calmly performing their jobs in skirts had traveled around the world.

And then something remarkable happened.

Arriva changed its policy.

The company announced that employees would be offered shorts after all.

It was a memorable example of how workers could challenge a rule without actually violating it — not by refusing to follow company policy, but by following it so literally that the contradiction became impossible to overlook.

The Heat Inside the Trains

The story began with a very ordinary workplace problem: heat.

Train drivers and conductors on Roslagsbanan had to spend long periods in railway vehicles during the summer. While Sweden is not normally associated with extreme heat, direct sunlight can cause enclosed train compartments and driver cabins to become much warmer than outside conditions.

Driver Martin Åkersten, who became one of the most widely quoted participants in the story, told Swedish media that temperatures inside the trains could become extremely uncomfortable.

“It can get as hot as 35 degrees Celsius” on sunny days, he explained at the time.

Another report from Sveriges Radio later quoted workers describing conditions reaching roughly 30 to 40 degrees Celsius inside the vehicles.

That made the company’s long trousers especially unpopular.

Before Arriva took over Roslagsbanan operations in January 2013, employees had reportedly been able to wear shorts during warmer periods. Under Arriva’s new uniform policy, however, shorts were excluded.

The reasoning was largely about appearance.

Arriva wanted employees representing the company to look neat and professional. Company spokesman Tomas Hedenius said shorts appeared too informal or “untidy” compared with the approved uniform options.

From management’s perspective, the policy was straightforward.

Employees could wear long trousers.

Or they could wear a skirt.

Shorts were not part of the approved uniform.

That distinction soon created an unexpected loophole.

The Rule Said Skirts Were Allowed

The uniform policy did not say that only women could wear skirts.

It simply listed skirts as an approved item.

That difference mattered.

When some male employees asked to wear shorts during the warmer weather, the company initially refused.

So instead of disobeying the dress code, approximately 13 male workers chose an option that the rules clearly allowed.

They requested skirts.

Swedish public broadcaster Sveriges Radio reported on June 7, 2013, that several male train drivers had begun wearing them specifically because shorts were prohibited.

Åkersten explained the logic plainly.

The alternative to a skirt was black long trousers, he said, and the skirt was simply more comfortable in summer.

There was no elaborate ideological statement required.

The employees were hot.

They wanted something cooler to wear.

Shorts were prohibited.