Last night’s CBS evening news (December 18, 2003) had a piece about UP collecting royalties from the model train industry. You can currently watch the video on their site, but I’m not sure how long it will be there.
Note how hard the UP guy was trying not to say “we make money off of this”?
Sad, but it will make those of us with UP models keep them.
After all, they just made them into collector items.
Ed
How sad this all is. I don’t believe that UP now has the good name they used to have. First the CNW merger didn’t go well. Second the meltdown in Texas during the SP merger. And now they want money from the model train industry. Just shows a greedy railroad become more greedy. The steam excursion is the one and only bright spot that UP can still boast of. But can the steam program overcome ALL the other problems and continue the good will ? We will have to wait and see.
My question, is it just the UP models that are being increased in price or all models because of this? If people are given a choice to buy a KCS unit and a UP unit but the UP unit costs $5 more, which will they buy? The cheaper one of course, well in most cases anyway. Seems to me that UP is shooting itself in the foot. They will be loosing alot of free advertising with lost sales of model engines. Well, big business getting bigger. What can you say?
Oh, but on the contrary. Coke changed the formula, everyone hated it, and then Coke said [#oops] and supposedly reinvented their drink and called it Classic Coke (you know? the kind of Coke everyone knew and enjoyed before?) That was the biggest marketing ploy of all time that, if it hasn’t been topped, certainly was unique. Bet’cha didn’t see that one coming? [:-^]
Ironhorseman
there are people i know who no longer drink coke STILL to this day.Uncle Pete gave himself a black eye.He will need a herd of cows to help recover.
stay safe
joe
I’m strongly opposed to this! Especially ridiculous is that they want to do this with fallen flags that are part of UP. Why don’t they just admit that they’re doing this just for the money? It’s something how times have changed. Back in the postwar years, many railroads paid model train manufacturers to produce trains in their paint scheme! The reason the first Lionel F3’s of 1949 were in Santa Fe and NYC is because both roads paid Lionel big bucks to make them in their colours first!
[8D]OK now If The UP people are watching there going to charge us $$$$
for saying UP Or Any Subs Every time you say UP Itll cost you A lot
So from now on we say (the railroad formaly known as) UP[:p]
First off I missed the video. [}:)] Second, I’m caught between a rock and a hard place cuz about 90% of my motive power is either Uncle Pete or SP. [}:)][B)] And when your already as deep in the hobby as I am, ( 100+ locos) its a little late to change.[8][:(][B)]
On another thread–about railroad nicknames, one of the guys reminded me about a saying Union Pacific employees have about their company: “You can’t spell ‘stupid’ without UP.”