Since a Question a while back was asked about how you feel about the UP adding 5 Dollars on every piece of rolling stock! I am asking this. Does the BNSF Railway do the same or do they not? (Charge) for Logo’s?
BNSFrailfan.
My question for UP, or any of them is “why bother?”
On balance,
The good:
Generate a few scheckles of “easy money”
The bad:
Alienate a group of fans, even if they aren’t customers;
Has absolutely no impact (at best) on company standing in its market or with its customers;
Gain no positive publicity anywhere, maybe generate some negative ink,
Increased administrative costs to approve the requests, count the pennies and draft the agreements,
No positive impact on those who don’t know or don’t care about the issue or UP.
But I’m not surprised. My wife is a PR Executive, and I hear about organizations making themselves look bad all the time. Most could not do a better job if they have hired someone and specifically told them to “go out and make us look like idiots.”
In this case, they’d have better off just not doing anything (company policy on the issue for eons) or having the manufacturers submit prints/specs, etc if they were really worried about the quality control in the reproduction of their logo. No charge, just give us a look. It’s not like Athearn was producing UP locos with graffiti underneath the name/logo saying “stinks.” Chalk up modelers creating their empires around UP as free advertising, particularly if one of them gets some ink somewhere.
By the way, the Bunter Ridge does not charge royalties on its logo. A bean counter did bring it up once, and got promoted to “Director of Coffee Distribution” for his efforts [B)]