Sweden’s MTR Express trains have carried out a promise to name a new train for the winner of an internet promotion, and the name, starting this coming week, is Trainy McTrainface.
The comic outcome mirrors an online naming event in the UK, where a disk jockey’s campaign produced the name of Boaty McBoatface for a new polar exploration vessel. It’s believed that many of the votes for Trainy also resulted from widespread publicity throughout Europe.
While the British government eventually rejected the name, but MTR greeted the result with a marketing director’s statement that “I can guarantee with my life that the train will be called Trainy McTrainface.”
And so, on Tuesday, in a ceremony at Goteborg Central Station, Trainy will be christened. Other names were picked for other new trains, including Ingvar, after a popular TV host; Estelle, after a young Swedish princess, and Glenn, a sly reference to a period in the 80s when Goteborg’s popular football team had a surprising number of Glenns among the players.
After rejecting Boaty McBoatface the name was given to the unmanned Submarine the Arctic Research Vessel carries.