Some day, public officials will learn to stop including write-in options in online polls. Today is not that day.
The Swedish train service MTR Express held a vote to name four trains that will run between Stockholm and Gothenburg, and the name for the last train won in a landslide: Trainy McTrainface.
Trainy McTrainface received 49% of the votes in a poll, jointly run by Swedish rail company MTR Express and Swedish newspaper Metro.
That placed it well ahead the other three options: Hakan, Miriam and Poseidon.
The other trains have already been named by the public: one is named Estelle, after the five-year-old daughter of Sweden’s Princess Victoria, the next in line to the Swedish throne.
The name is a spin-off of when online fans took over a British online poll to name one of the country’s new polar research vessels. The voters chose “Boaty McBoatface.” However, Britain’s National Environmental Research Council vetoed the name, instead naming it the RSS David Attenborough. They conceded to naming one of the vessel’s submarines Boaty McBoatface.
MTR Express will have no such veto, according to the company.
MTR Express said the McBoatface decision had led to disappointment worldwide and it hoped the name Trainy McTrainface would “be received with joy by many, not only in Sweden”.
Bless you, Sweden.
