Greedy modern day railroads

[Penn_senseless]

Whilst perousing the Bachmann site, I noticed the disclaimer that Bachmann (and other model makers) are authorized to use logos of Union Pacific, CSX and their parent companies.

Thats sickening. 

It isnt enough that these GREEDY corporations have been getting YEARS of free advertising and positive publicity from toy and hobby manufacturers..... oh no, thats not enough, (every 8 year old boy in the past 80 years that has had a train set knows what Union Pacific is)  lets hold them up for MORE money instead. I wonder how much a manufacturer like Bachmann had to fork over for this "extortion" which results in higher prices for the consumer as well. 

Some Wall Street pinhead probably gave them (union Pac, CSX) the idea

[Summertrainz]

it's strangley different the advertising...
there not... selling anything

if you need to transport something... you put it on "THE TRAIN" thats in the area.
i don't think a consumer/ traveler would care as much as they care what airline.

i don't think there like ads but i think it still may be extortion
well... no one's ever making enough money...

[Tom Lapointe]

There's happily been some VERY POSITIVE  developments in the "licensing issue" over the last year, in particular a settlement between UP & Mike's Train House, which resulted in a substancial reduction (in fact, close to elimination) of UP's licensing fees to virtually all model railroad manufacturers  (From what I understand, CSX's policy was never as oppressive as UP's was).  I agree that this was a MAJOR "black eye" against UP in particular, as they were applying it not only to the UP trademark, but also "copyrighting" that of virtually any other railroad they had absorbed - such as Rio Grande!   (And all you narrow gauge guys who thought that since they didn't run "Big Boys", "Challengers", or DD40X "Centennials" thought they were unaffected by this!).    

It's not only the model railroad world that's been affected by this onerous practice  - model car manufacturers have had licensing issues with the automakers, plastic model aircraft guys with the military aircraft manufacturers (who aren't exactly hurting in the pocketbook either!).  Guess the corporate "bean counters" &  lawyers have to find justification for their  (inflated ) salaries!

[pdlethbridge]

A number of years ago, I worked in a print shop that did work for Kodak and Xerox. When we printed their letterheads we had to color match perfectly. Kodak was very fussy about the quality of the letterhead and wouldn't sign off on it unless it was perfect. They were corporate colors and emblems and had to be a reflection of the company. UP, no doubt, has corporate standards as well, and everything with the corporate name must be of the highest quality. By licensing the name, it makes their company logo on model trains match the real corporate logo.

[ebtnut]

This whole topic has been bandied about in the past.  Part of what was going on is the rise of the bean-counters in corporate life.  The bottom line is the only thing that counts, and part of their job is to look for ANY way to add to that bottom line, including charging licensing fees for use of corporate logos and such.  The other thing is a real legal issue.  Corporations need and want to hold onto their corporate identities.  Use of logos and other corporate identities without permission, and without complaint, runs the risk of them losing the exclusive rights and trademarks.  Chessie System really started this in the model world, and got hammered like UP, but they modified their policy and stuck with it.  Yes, in a more innocient time the railroads were probably happy to have the "free advertising" on models, when the PR department probably had more say.  But it is a much more litiguous world these day.