The Fort Worth Transportation Authority (The T) is collaborating with Fort Worth Weekly to come up with a new name for a commuter train to run from Sycamore School Road in southwest Tarrant County, through downtown Fort Worth, on to downtown Grapevine, and ending at the north entrance of Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport. The current working name — Southwest-to-Northeast Rail Corridor — doesn’t have much snap, so we here at the Weekly are pleased to assist in running a contest to come up with a great name.
Passenger trains throughout history have been christened with names that have come to sound poetic over time: “City of New Orleans,” “Midnight Special,” “Wabash Cannonball,” and “Rock Island Line” are just a few passenger trains made famous in popular music. So the pressure is on, people. We need a name that will inspire the next Lead Belly or Arlo Guthrie to pen a classic hit.
Based on public transportation’s current low ridership in these parts, how about “Ghost Train”? Or the “DisOrient Express” based on The T’s recent allowing and then disallowing of religious ads on the side of buses. Fortunately for The T, the Weekly’s smart-aleck employees aren’t allowed to participate. But the transit agency believes our readers will be a great source for creative name suggestions — and for future ridership. “We thought they’d be the perfect audience for our target market,” public relations specialist Claire Bloxom said.
Her thoughts about what would make a good name? “Maybe something that had to do with the city of Fort Worth, something to do with trains, maybe something that indicates something fast or quick.” (Based on that description, the perfect name would be “Cowtown Choo-Choo Drunken Sex.” But, dammit, Static can’t vote.)
Interested participants can submit their name suggestions online at www.FWWeekly.com/thenameevent through Feb. 17. The winning entrant gets two American Airlines round-trip tickets for travel anywhere throughout the continental U.S. The top 10 submissions win $25 Sundance Square gift cards redeemable at restaurants, retailers, and entertainment venues. All entries are automatically entered to win two round-trip tickets on Amtrak’s Texas Eagle route.
The commuter line is expected to be completed and running by 2014. The T estimates ridership will top 15,000 trips a day by 2030 with trains running every 20 minutes during peak hours.
Hmm, how about the “We’ll Believe It When We See It Express?”
