Winner of public vote to name new engine on Stockholm-Gothenburg line echoes UK poll choice for polar research ship

This article is more than 3 years old

This article is more than 3 years old

It’s happened again. A public vote to name four trains running between the Swedish cities of Stockholm and Gothenburg has resulted in one of the four being called Trainy McTrainface in an echo of the name chosen by the British public for the new polar research vessel.

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.

Another is named Glenn, after a long-running joke that everyone in Gothenburg is called Glenn. The joke has a basis in fact: the name is particularly common in the city and its surrounding area, with its popularity stemming from the 1980s, when local football team IFK Göteborg had four players all called Glenn in its lineup. Forty-three per cent of voters supported the name Glenn.

'Boaty McBoatface' ship to be called RRS Sir David Attenborough Read more

The fourth train has yet to be named. A fifth train, Ingvar, after the Swedish TV personality Ingvar Oldsberg, was named before voting began.

The public vote was eventually overruled in the case of Boaty McBoatface and the ship named the RRS Sir David Attenborough, with an onboard submersible receiving the Boatface appellation.

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”.