The issue of licensing by TOCs arose in a railway simulator forum (whereby licensing has been required to included branded trains in routes).
I presume this must obviously happen nowadays, with Hornby et al following similar procedures, but these are changed times from the past, and it begs the question of what happened in the older days of model railways: did Hornby in the 1970s have to be ‘licensed’ by British Rail to manufacture BR trains? Did they need to do anything, even? Or was BR, as a nationalised industry, presumed to be ‘public property’?