BNSF had sought to charge model railroad manufacturers a licensing fee to use the company’s trademarks on scale products, and had contacted individual companies to that end. Wolf, having successfully spearheaded the effort for a similar agreement with Union Pacific Railroad several years ago, has been tapped to represent the model railroad manufacturers in the talks.
Wolf said discussions with BNSF began in December 2008 and continued into this year, but there’s been no contact from the railroad for about a month.
BNSF had offered the industry a deal where manufacturers would pay the railroad $1 for the next five years, then licensing fees after that. But model railroad makers would rather see a deal similar to the one hammered out with Union Pacific, where use of the railroad trademarks – including merged and predecessor railroads’ logos – is free in perpetuity, provided the companies show artwork to the UP and send a sample a year for quality verification. It must also be noted in advertising that products are licensed by UP. Any company producing UP-related model railroad products is eligible to for the agreement.
As part of the deal, UP even provides color verification and paint scheme diagrams for the cost of having them reproduced.
Wolf thinks the legal onus is on the BNSF right now, not the manufacturers. He points out BNSF predecessor Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe used to pay toy train manufacturer Lionel to produce Santa Fe-decorated products. Further, where Union Pacific has protected the trademarks of predecessor railroads by painting modern locomotives in “heritage” paint schemes, BNSF – whose component roads also include Burlington Northern; St. Louis & San Francisco; Spokane, Portland & Seattle; and Chicago, Burlington & Quincy – have failed to do so.
