Now I know most if not ALL of the worlds toys are now made in China, but has anyone ever created a toy company for their layout. I think it would provide a lot of rail possibilities. You would have boxcars for fabrics and hardware and hoppers upon hoppers of different colored plastic pellets for molding. Maybe even some flat cars in and out delivering manufacturing machines. Just a thought, anyone else want to chime in on this one?
One problem might be publishing photographs of model railroad cars that have commercial names on them without paying the royalties to the companies. You may own the car but you don't the own rights to the name.
Doc
I've got a Life-Like Toys 'R" Us box car, which came from a yard sale complete with Talgos and horn-hooks, one of which was mounted upside-down. (My sister found it and gave it to me, in case you're wondering.) Anyway, it's got Geoffrey the Giraffe on it. It lives in a box beneath my layout.
Mostly, though, a toy factory would look pretty much like any other. The signs on the walls would probably be the only thing that would give it away.
It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse.
At the time that I rescued a badly-smashed TRU train set from the dumpster (temporarily,) the only still-serviceable car was the 50-foot 'Geoffrey' box. I swapped a well-weathered set of Kadee K couplers (without trip pins) for the horn-hooks, mounted it on a length of sectional track anchored to an 11-inch length of stained 1x4 and gave it to my store director. He let me keep the rest of the track and the transformer.
Yes, I was working for Toys 'R' Us at the time. Went in looking for possible model railroad fodder, came out with a job.
Chuck (modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
topcopdoc wrote:One problem might be publishing photographs of model railroad cars that have commercial names on them without paying the royalties to the companies. You may own the car but you don't the own rights to the name.Doc
I think this would fall under standard "fair use" laws. Remember almost everything on a model railroad is a representation of a commercial entity. Every non-freelanced piece of rolling stock on a railroad has the logo, reporting marks or some other identifer on it marking it as belonging to some company that we, the modeler does not have the rights to. As long as the modeler is not making money off of the actual corporate logo, I don't think it would be a problem. How many of us have a Ford dealership or Shell station on our layouts? Do we have to pay them money for our model of it? No, usually there is no problem with using a logo in a non-defamatory way that doesn't make money for the person building the model.
As a photographer as well, I'm quite aware of what can and cannot be considdered fair use. I can take a picture of a jealously defended copyright such as a Corvette, and sell the photo without paying any royalties to GM, it's much the same in other hobbies too. Almost every photo in model railroading magazines or books has at least one corporate copyright represented in it, be it the paint scheme of an engine or ad for 7up on a truck. Now I could be very wrong but I highly doubt that MR has someone on staff to look through every picture they publish and pay out to every company represented, it would just be far too costly.
Bottom line, I believe as long as you, the modeler are not selling a building kit or freight cars for profit on the market with the logo of a protected copyright on the side, and banking on the logo to make you the money, you should be just fine.
Cheers!
~METRO
You could model Athearn, and have the GP40X switching it, a vintage "little monster" in the front yard as a display behind a fence, the warehouse, Athearn WSOR/Athearn anniversary boxcars, etc.
Thanks guys for this excellent idea!!!
Phil
Am I reading it right? Wasnt the orginal topic to have a toy company as an industry on the layout? If so where did we get to having logo permission etc.?
Dave
AltoonaRailroader wrote:Now I know most if not ALL of the worlds toys are now made in China, but has anyone ever created a toy company for their layout. I think it would provide a lot of rail possibilities. You would have boxcars for fabrics and hardware and hoppers upon hoppers of different colored plastic pellets for molding. Maybe even some flat cars in and out delivering manufacturing machines. Just a thought, anyone else want to chime in on this one?
I shudder at this thought of a modern scene of a toy company...just an ocean dock with cranes lifting multi-modal modules onto railroad cars all marked Toyz4U and whisked of by train to distribution centers.
I think there is still a lot of USA based manufacturing. A model scene would be cool (freelanced or whatever, figger out all the materials and cars it needs and it would have various docks the cars have to park at, your switcher challenge.
We don't need to go into the copyright issues again, thats another thread, so move it ....----> 8-P
You could model a TRU distribution center. Big U-shaped building, two sidings down the center and about a hundred truck docks around the outer edges, all inside a BIG parking lot for additional tractors and trailers with Geoffery logos.
Then, just by changing signage, it could become Wal-Mart, Ace Hardware or any of the other big-volume multi-outlet stores dealing in lots of little items. Add some heavy-duty refrigeration and it could become a distribution center for Kroger, Smith's, Fry's... (Actually, all of the latter are Kroger companies.)
DavidGSmith wrote: Am I reading it right? Wasnt the orginal topic to have a toy company as an industry on the layout? If so where did we get to having logo permission etc.?Dave
Ummmmmmmmmmm, that's what I was thinking?? Let's keep it in modelling guys. Just any other industry we model. Sheeesh!!!!
But thanks for the input. I hope Coor's doens't come knocking at my door because I have a few cars and a brewery that park in front of.
I think what Doc and the other posters are talking about is that if you made a model of a real toy company factory, like let's say a model of a Tonka Toy plant, and had the building and some freight cars lettered using the Tonka Toy logo, etc. you could run into trouble if you took pictures of the factory and cars and had them published (and were paid for it) by MR or RMC.
Anyway, I don't think it's an issue. Pelle Soeborg in the book on his layout shows pics of models of several real companies operations like Denny's and I think Super 8 motels etc. I doubt he had to get their permission to do the pics showing their logos...but then again, UPS doesn't allow anyone to use their logo in models or even decals. That's why there are models available that are clearly based on UPS delivery trucks, but they can't use "UPS" or the company logo on them.
First off, UPS does license their logo for models; it ain't cheap, but it can be licensed.
Onto the subject: For a pure toy company, it might be interesting to see if you can find photos of one of the Louis Marx factories. Marx was the world's biggest toy company at one time and had three factories located in Erie and Girard, Pennsylvania and Glen Dale, West Virginia. Marx toys were carried by everyone from five-and-dimes to Sears and Montgomery Wards. The Marx name is still in use in various forms, but I don't believe anyone is using "Louis Marx & Company" anymore and I am sure no one would give you any trouble if you stuck it on a factory.
Most toy factories produce products for a number of companies and their output isn't always limited to toys. This was true for many companies even in the old days when most of the toys sold in the U.S. were made in the U.S. Toy production is governed by a couple of major seasons (like Christmas) with slow periods in between. Unused production capacity is expensive and tooling and injection-molding machines are far too costly to have them sitting idle. You could build your factory and stick any name on it you want. Probably something like "XYZ Manufacturing" would be just fine.
In terms of loads, you'd be surprised at the variety you could legitimately deliver. Pellets for injection-molding, metals for diecasting, steel and aluminum for tooling, machinery, various chemicals, boxcars with bulk shipments of pre-printed packages or drums of paint (even model railroad companies don't use Floquil, ScaleCoat or Testor's; they use special mixes supplied in 55-gallon drums).
Outbound shipments would generally be cartons of toys on pallets and you could use a combination of boxcars or trucks. If you wanted to make a TRU boxcar or tractor-trailer for yourself, nobody's going to say anything; it's protected by fair use. However, in reality, toys from the manufacturer are typically shipped by common carrier to a TRU distribution center. TRU trucks are used to ship from the distribution center to the individual stores.
bcawthon, thanks so much for the input that was very informative. And makes all the sense in the world. Maybe for my next layout I'll add something just like that. I wasn't actually going to model a Toy Plant, but after you're post I think I want to now.
Thanks
wjstix wrote: DavidGSmith wrote: Am I reading it right? Wasnt the orginal topic to have a toy company as an industry on the layout? If so where did we get to having logo permission etc.?Dave I think what Doc and the other posters are talking about is that if you made a model of a real toy company factory, like let's say a model of a Tonka Toy plant, and had the building and some freight cars lettered using the Tonka Toy logo, etc. you could run into trouble if you took pictures of the factory and cars and had them published (and were paid for it) by MR or RMC. Anyway, I don't think it's an issue. Pelle Soeborg in the book on his layout shows pics of models of several real companies operations like Denny's and I think Super 8 motels etc. I doubt he had to get their permission to do the pics showing their logos...but then again, UPS doesn't allow anyone to use their logo in models or even decals. That's why there are models available that are clearly based on UPS delivery trucks, but they can't use "UPS" or the company logo on them.
Thanks for clearing that up wjstix. What he was saying makes more sense now.