{"id":48485,"date":"2019-05-24T03:00:24","date_gmt":"2019-05-24T07:00:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=48485"},"modified":"2019-05-24T17:57:12","modified_gmt":"2019-05-24T21:57:12","slug":"ottawa-chooses-boring-names-for-their-new-light-rail-trains","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2019\/05\/24\/ottawa-chooses-boring-names-for-their-new-light-rail-trains\/","title":{"rendered":"Ottawa chooses boring names for their new light rail trains"},"content":{"rendered":"

OC Transpo, the Ottawa area transit authority, ran a contest for children to suggest names for their new light rail trains. Being bureaucrats, they carefully avoided choosing some rather clever names<\/a> the kids suggested:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Ottawa O-Train leaving St.Laurent Station tunnel, January 2018
Photo by “Saboteurest” via Wikimedia Commons.<\/p><\/div>\n

When commuters and tourists finally do step on to the $2.1 billion light-rail system \u2013 already more than two years behind schedule \u2013 they’ll ride Maple Taffy<\/em>, Snowbird<\/em> or Northern Lights<\/em>, when they could’ve boarded Shania Train or Roberta Bondcar, a witty nod to Canada’s first female astronaut.<\/p>\n

Culled from entries restricted to children 16 and under, winning selections that consisted largely of Canadian clich\u00e9s favoured by the City of Ottawa, was not due to a lack of overall creativity from the youth who participated.<\/p>\n

Zooming Poutine, The Queensway Cruise and Sir Chuggsalot were overlooked for winning selections Poppy<\/em>, Totem<\/em> and Tundra<\/em>. Galloping Goose, Tunnel Beaver and The Speed Beaver were also overlooked by judges, who preferred The Canada Goose<\/em>, Majestic Moose<\/em> and Nanuq\/Polar Bear<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Even Ottawa professional sports teams and fan-favourites like former Senators’ stars Daniel Alfreddson and Erik Karlsson \u2013 The Alfie and Karlsson Express \u2013 didn’t make the cut, while Rocket Richard<\/em>, the Montreal Canadiens legend, will rub this in at every stop his train makes.<\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n

But perhaps the most glaringly overlooked multiple-entry from the more historically-minded youth was Thomas Ahearn, a local inventor and founder of the Ottawa Electric Railway Company which built the city’s original streetcar system.<\/p>\n

Judges also denied Justin Traindeau and The Jimmy Wagon (a wink at current Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson), and weren’t keen on Sorry, NIMBY Express, Taxed To Death and Da Sink Hole from the more politically sardonic kids; the latter a jab at the huge pit rail construction opened up on Rideau Street.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

OC Transpo, the Ottawa area transit authority, ran a contest for children to suggest names for their new light rail trains. Being bureaucrats, they carefully avoided choosing some rather clever names the kids suggested: When commuters and tourists finally do step on to the $2.1 billion light-rail system \u2013 already more than two years behind […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":35193,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,6,237],"tags":[374,1002,522],"class_list":["post-48485","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bureaucracy","category-cancon","category-railways","tag-children","tag-lightrail","tag-ottawa"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/favicon.png","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-cC1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48485","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48485"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48485\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":48534,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48485\/revisions\/48534"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48485"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48485"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48485"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}