This article was a letter to the editor in the Omaha World Herald. It was in the paper today June 11, 2004. The article is in brackets.
[U.P. suit is shameful
I am embarrassed. I worked for Union Pacific Railroad for more than 20 years; my father, for more than 40. Sadly, the Union Pacific of today clearly is not the same as the one for which we proudly worked.
The current lawsuit against various manufacturers of model railroad equipment would be laughable if it weren’t for the fact that this multibillion-dollar corporation is seriously injuring, if not killing, a little group of tiny businesses.
For every relatively large company like Athearn, one of the manufacturers being sued, there are probably 10 or 15 model manufacturers literally located in the owners’ basements. (Even Athearn is hardly a big business - it probably has fewer than 100 employees.)
There was a time 30 years ago when the U.P. public relations department actively solicited model railroad manufacturers. Union Pacific would encourage them to make U.P. models, going so far as to provide them with free charts and diagrams to make certain the models were authentic. If they weren’t, no self-respecting modeler would buy them.
The prodigious rate at which U.P. is squandering goodwill virtually ensures that it won’t be much of a factor in the future.
Lowell L. Turner, Omaha]
Knowing all of the talk that has been going on about Union Pacific lately, I figured that this would be a good article to post.
I think that this clearly explains just how people feel about the Union Pacific. A former employee of the UP is actually embarrassed to have worked for the railroad. What does that tell you?
Willy