Hornby 2022 - Trains on Film

[adb968008]

Well so ends day 1.

 

We’ve not seen such drama, since May 1st 2019.

meanwhile a railway film clip that seems to sum this up…

 

it could be a long time before we see Lion in oo gauge.

 

 

Edited January 11, 2022 by adb968008

[SamThomas]

7 hours ago, autocoach said:

I would have thought better of Lyndon Davies...

Checkout Oxford Diecast ;

76MN0005, 76JAG2001, 76105008, 76105007 & 76CAP001.

[phil-b259]

20 hours ago, TrainMan2001 said:

Maybe, but Bachmann did the same thing (no face, different livery), and they were shot down with copyright when Hornby owned the license.

 

Thats largely because the shape of the 'de- branded' Thomas was EXACTLY the same as the TV characters!

 

Unlike Hornby, when Bachmann created their TTE models (having got the rest of the world licence after TTE was a success) the rights holders demanded Bachmann be a 100% faithful copy of the engines seen on screen - not just bodged E2 tooling (which differs from the on screen characters) with a face for example.

 

Thus in legal terms just reproducing Bachmann's Thomas and Percy was a violation of copyright / trade mark / etc even if the models lacked TTE decoration

 

Hornby on the other hand will have had no problem with their ex-Thomas (i.e. the modified E2) tooling being produced as a fictitious SECR loco as this loco was not a slavish copy of the TTE character of the same name.

 

 

So as regards Hornbys 'Inspired by Titfield' range, they can only do it without infringing IP rights by making models of things which are (1) in the public domain and (2) whose decoration is not exclusive to the film.

 

So producing Lion is fine - but NOT in the livery it wore in the film (unless loco was on public display in said livery somewhere).

 

Producing the well wagon and Toad brake van are fine (but not its livery - unless said livery was unchanged from its BR condition, in which case the liveries are not within the scope of the films IP).

 

HOWEVER the prop / passenger accommodation on said well wagon was created solely for the film so its design and livery are covered by the IP. On the other hand if Hornby stuck the 3 compartment body from its ancient 4  wheeled carriage on the well wagon (and made sure its livery was not a slavish copy of the film prop) then that would be not infringe IP.

 

As for the bus - the design of the bus is in the public domain - but use of the specific destination blinds seen in the film are not. You could get round this by using real place names that are exceedingly close to those featured on the blind (humans 'read' by recognising patterns within words rather than slavishly looking at every letter in each word). The status of IP with the bus livery will depend on whether the bus was specifically painted that colour for the film or not. One solution that does not infringe IP is trawl through bus company history and see if you can find a nationalised one with a very similar livery.

 

Turning to the box - 'Inspired by' as a prefix is not enough to prevent you falling foul of IP rights. If you really want to be sure of that then it would have to be something along the lines of 'Inspired by a great 1952 Railway comedy'

 

Edited January 11, 2022 by phil-b259

[GWR-fan]

When does a brandname or trademark become a "generic" symbol to the market?  No doubt the likes of Coca-Cola and Pepsi will strenuously defend their brand but what of all the other trademarks out there?  About twenty or so years ago Union Pacific initiated royalty/licencing requirements for any product representing their tradename.  There was much discussion and cries of never modelling the Union Pacific again on the American model railroad scene.  I cannot recall the outcome but the furore died down relatively quickly.  I know that modern image niche manufacturers need to obtain approval for various private liveries,  but does time erode that requirement as the tradename becomes part of history.  As companies takeover other companies does the original trademark retain legal status even if no longer used?   Would Hornby have always received approval to represent the numerous liveries or even the design characteristics of the many models produced over the years?

 

Edit:  as a follow on I found this on Wikipedia (quote)  "On May 27, 2004, Union Pacific Railroad sued Athearn (another manufacturer of model railroad equipment) and Lionel for trademark infringement. The railroad claimed both companies put the names and logos of UP, as well as the names and logos of various fallen flag railroads UP had acquired over the years, on their model railroad products without a license. While Athearn quickly settled and acquired a license, Lionel initially resisted, arguing that it and its predecessor companies had been using the logos for more than 50 years, and had been encouraged or even paid to do so. On September 13, 2006, Lionel and UP settled the suit for US$640,000 plus a royalty on future sales." (end quote)

 

 

Edited January 11, 2022 by GWR-fan

[phil-b259]

2 hours ago, Corbs said:

 

People keep saying that but the market has never been bigger.

 

There is a significant difference between a 'market' and the 'mass market'!

 

Go back to the 1950s / 1960s and you would find toy trains at the top of most boys present Wishlists and a huge number of 'general purpose' retailers stocking them. Its no different to mobile phones or consoles today where everyone from grocery shops to tech emporiums wants a slice of the action.

 

That 'mass market appeal for model trains simply doesn't exist anymore, succumbing to the rise of electronic toys, plus the general feeling in society in the 70s / 80s that trains / railways were very much a old fashioned / uncool / outdated thing.

 

Things probably hit their lowest in the early 90s - but then various companies realised that if you actually significantly up the detail levels (which had generally been stuck in the doldrums for 20 odd years - and yes I know Airfix, Mainline, etc did have a go at producing better stuff) then you can attract a whole new generation of customers. In fact there are interesting paralels with the fortunes of the real railway where 'managed decline' had to be changed to 'invest and grow' as passenger volumes have rebounded in the past 25 years).

 

So to recap, there is no confliction between saying the market for highly detailed (and thus expensive) model railways is a growing market (hence the emergence of several new players in the past 5 years) but at the same time model railways lack mass market appeal.

[GWR-fan]

42 minutes ago, phil-b259 said:

...........................................................

 

So to recap, there is no confliction between saying the market for highly detailed (and thus expensive) model railways is a growing market (hence the emergence of several new players in the past 5 years) but at the same time model railways lack mass market appeal.

 

It would seem that the "new" players in the market were tired of the less than realistic offerings in the market and prepared to manufacture the type of model that they as predominantly model railway hobbyists wished from the market.  Some see these newcomers as interfering with an established market,  whereas in reality they are a breath of fresh air in a stagnating market.  For a generation Hornby,  Bachmann and Dapol have existed somewhat on hand me down heritage tooling,  some dating back to original Hornby-Dublo origins.  These enthusiast manufacturers have increased the demand for high fidelity models,  even if to the detriment of the lazy major players in the market who until relatively recently thought "if we build it they will buy".

[phil-b259]

12 minutes ago, GWR-fan said:

 

It would seem that the "new" players in the market were tired of the less than realistic offerings in the market and prepared to manufacture the type of model that they as predominantly model railway hobbyists wished from the market. 

 

Or simply tap the demand for models of certain classes not catered for by the 'big boys'

 

Hornby, etc can only produce so much 'product' every year (particularly since the move of production to China by 3rd party factories).  New players tapping into new production facilities can thus help to deliver more models overall.

[GWR-fan]

6 minutes ago, phil-b259 said:

 

Or simply tap the demand for models of certain classes not catered for by the 'big boys'

 

..............................................................

 

Or perhaps they decided not to be taken for granted by Hornby.  Other than Oxford Rail,  the newcomers have as yet not released coaches, but definitely planned for release,  but what irks me is the like of Hornby releasing Mk3 buffet cars with no vents in the roof and even with coach seating in the bar area.  This to me is indicative of the company's lax attitude to the market,  still perceiving their role as toy trainset manufacturers primarily.

[I.C.L. 11]

I agree that "Trains on Film" appears to be purely a means of justifying the Titfield duplication. In fairness though, during the WOR March 2021 virtual show I seem to remember SK telling AY in interview that Lion will be part of a special range or words to that effect. I took this to mean an "era 1" range but it is likely that Trains on Film was already planned back then.

 

How many people have actually watched The Lady with a Lamp? Never seen it but I would consider buying the set as I'd like Lion but those defaced L&MR coaches don't appeal.

 

I'm surprised nobody has suggested Brief Encounter to continue the Trains of Film range with it's Stanier 2-6-4T, LMS suburban coaches and streamlined coronation all possible from the existing range to name a few.

Edited January 11, 2022 by I.C.L. 11
Missing words

[Din]

6 hours ago, SomethingTrainLover said:

Actually that's not true. Bachmann's TTTE engines across all its ranges are under contract to only be used for those ranges, ie, the tooling can only be used for the Thomas ranges. It goes double for Skarloey and Rheneas, as I believe they were initially commissioned by Mattel to start. SO yeah, nothing to do with Hornby there. Well bar Bachmann being unable to sell their main OO scale range(s) in the UK till Hornby released the UK rights.

 

The Bachmann Junior Range models seemed somewhat exempt from this, but Hornby dragged Bachmann to court over it, where the court ruling specified that Hornby has the exclusive rights in 4mm scale only. It's why the G-scale stuff started being introduced by Bachmann not long after the Junior range was pulled in its entirety. Hornby then let the rights lapse/be denied a renewal not that many years after.

 

The current slapfight over Skarloey and Rheneas is apparently an internal affair between Bachmann Europe and Bachmann USA, the latter of which refuses to "let" Europe apparently have the locos in sensible colours, hence the weird bright yellow Rheneas being released over here.

[Din]

5 hours ago, GWR-fan said:

When does a brandname or trademark become a "generic" symbol to the market?  No doubt the likes of Coca-Cola and Pepsi will strenuously defend their brand but what of all the other trademarks out there?  About twenty or so years ago Union Pacific initiated royalty/licencing requirements for any product representing their tradename.  There was much discussion and cries of never modelling the Union Pacific again on the American model railroad scene.  I cannot recall the outcome but the furore died down relatively quickly.  I know that modern image niche manufacturers need to obtain approval for various private liveries,  but does time erode that requirement as the tradename becomes part of history.  As companies takeover other companies does the original trademark retain legal status even if no longer used?   Would Hornby have always received approval to represent the numerous liveries or even the design characteristics of the many models produced over the years?

 

Edit:  as a follow on I found this on Wikipedia (quote)  "On May 27, 2004, Union Pacific Railroad sued Athearn (another manufacturer of model railroad equipment) and Lionel for trademark infringement. The railroad claimed both companies put the names and logos of UP, as well as the names and logos of various fallen flag railroads UP had acquired over the years, on their model railroad products without a license. While Athearn quickly settled and acquired a license, Lionel initially resisted, arguing that it and its predecessor companies had been using the logos for more than 50 years, and had been encouraged or even paid to do so. On September 13, 2006, Lionel and UP settled the suit for US$640,000 plus a royalty on future sales." (end quote)

 

 

 

 

Generally when you stop defending it. Or if your name becomes a catch-all "generic" reference to that item in particular. So had Lionel actually played hardball they likely could've won because UP had not bothered for the 50 years prior.

 

Two fun cases over here in Europe were the RAF Roundel and the Big Mac.

 

The RAF in 2004 attempted to sue various clothing companies to defend its trademark only to find that, because they'd not enforced its ownership of that "brand" since the 60s mods and rockers movement they no longer owned the rights to it being placed on clothing.

 

McDonalds decided to gun after a small Irish restraunt chain that had been operating since 1974 as "Supermacs" in Ireland, with about 100 or so outlets, they tried to argue that "Supermacs" would somehow confuse people over their much more famous "bigmac" burger. There's a few other technical points they lost out on (namely they couldn't site restraunts under the "Bigmac" name etc) but the end result was Mcdonalds losing the trademark under specific circumstances, and a BurgerKing branch in Scandinavia renaming all their whoppers to "Bigmac but flame grilled" and "Bigmac but bigger" for a few days.

 

Now for two examples of defence/not defence.

 

If I say the word "Hoover" am I talking about the household appliance or the company? That's become a generic term in the zeitgeist because it was the first successful company to market them commercially.

 

Nintendo ran a successful campaign in the 1990s defending its name as increasingly parents began to refer to any games console be it Sega, Atari etc as "A Nintendo". They poured millions with Mario at the forefront pointing out that it was only "A Nintendo" if it had their seal of approval, while the campaign doesn't run today, the seal remains on every official peice of Nintendo product.

[Corbs]

6 hours ago, phil-b259 said:

 

There is a significant difference between a 'market' and the 'mass market'!

 

Go back to the 1950s / 1960s and you would find toy trains at the top of most boys present Wishlists and a huge number of 'general purpose' retailers stocking them. Its no different to mobile phones or consoles today where everyone from grocery shops to tech emporiums wants a slice of the action.

 

That 'mass market appeal for model trains simply doesn't exist anymore, succumbing to the rise of electronic toys, plus the general feeling in society in the 70s / 80s that trains / railways were very much a old fashioned / uncool / outdated thing.

 

Things probably hit their lowest in the early 90s - but then various companies realised that if you actually significantly up the detail levels (which had generally been stuck in the doldrums for 20 odd years - and yes I know Airfix, Mainline, etc did have a go at producing better stuff) then you can attract a whole new generation of customers. In fact there are interesting paralels with the fortunes of the real railway where 'managed decline' had to be changed to 'invest and grow' as passenger volumes have rebounded in the past 25 years).

 

So to recap, there is no confliction between saying the market for highly detailed (and thus expensive) model railways is a growing market (hence the emergence of several new players in the past 5 years) but at the same time model railways lack mass market appeal.

 

I am guilty of my own bias as I had not thought about the pre-1990s market and the fact it had such wide appeal, I was thinking more in terms of the Lima era onwards.

 

[Markwj]

It does remind me of the time when Dave Jones announced he was going to copyright loco's and this would prevent duplication. I think this was around the time accurascale announced their 92. I was just thinking why Hornby hadn't adopted the same approach to the thomas the tank engine range that they seem to be adopting here but that seems to have been answered above thanks.

[Pmorgancym]

8 hours ago, PhilJ W said:

Surely Studio Canal would be able to demand royalties from Hornby for using the Titfield Thunderbolt name.

 

And Rapido would then claim against Studio Canal over loss of their exclusive rights

[Trainnoob]

I'm glad to see rapido trains made statement regarding this, I feel Hornby should be taken down a peg or two.

 

 

I think Hornby should stick to stuff that customers want and cant get and should stop just leaching of smaller manufacturers using there size as a weapon.

I feel like this is just more then legal issues it's more about Hornbys attitude.

 

Edited January 11, 2022 by Trainnoob

[Kris]

8 hours ago, PhilJ W said:

Surely Studio Canal would be able to demand royalties from Hornby for using the Titfield Thunderbolt name.

 

The name is not a Trademark, nor is it covered by other intellectual property rights so it is unlikely that a royalty could be charged for it. 

[adb968008]

5 hours ago, I.C.L. 11 said:

How many people have actually watched The Lady with a Lamp? Never seen it but I would consider buying the set as I'd like Lion but those defaced L&MR coaches don't appeal.

 

I'm surprised nobody has suggested Brief Encounter to continue the Trains of Film range with it's Stanier 2-6-4T, LMS suburban coaches and streamlined coronation all possible from the existing range to name a few.

I’d never heard of “The lady with a lamp” until yesterday.

Is Florence Nightingale a secret railway enthusiast ?

 

It sounds like a link as tenuous to a train film as that Deltic is on Newcastle viaduct in Get Carter.

The two definitive UK Railway Films are quite definitely The Railway Children and Titfield thunderbolt. Going beyond that probably Buster (or Robbery) but the general theme of the Great Train Robbery. St Trinians train robbery had a following too. The “First Great Train Robbery” had a following for a while, and if looking back further,  Brief Encounter, and Oh Mr Porter.

 

 

 

 

Edited January 11, 2022 by adb968008

[PhilJ W]

1 minute ago, adb968008 said:

I’d never heard of “The lady with a lamp” until yesterday.

Is Florence Nightingale a secret railway enthusiast ?

 

It sounds like a link as tenuous to a train film as that Deltic is on Newcastle viaduct in Get Carter.

The two definitive UK Railway Films are quite definitely The Railway Children and Titfield thunderbolt. Going beyond that probably Buster (or Robbery) but the general theme of the Great Train Robbery. St Trinians train robbery had a following too. The “First Great Train Robbery” had a following for a while, and if looking back further,  Brief Encounter, and Oh Mr Porter.

It was a film as would be obvious about Florence Nightingale. Lion appeared briefly in the film, that is the connection. http://railwaymoviedatabase.com/the-lady-with-a-lamp/

[Nearholmer]

3 minutes ago, adb968008 said:

Is Florence Nightingale a secret railway enthusiast ?

Possibly not. She was mad keen on keeping cats, and I’m sure I heard a story that she accidentally left one on a train at Watford Junction which, if true, must have coloured her opinion of railways.

 

I do vaguely remember seeing The Lady with the Lamp about a zillion years ago on TV, my recollection being that it seemed mostly dark, and rather dull, but I was probably only about six or seven at the time, so probably wasn’t the target audience. I don’t remember any trains.

[cessna152towser]

I have to wonder why the release blurb refers to the Titfield Thunderbolt train as Era 1 when the film was made in early BR days and set in that era.     Lion, if modelled in original condition and not as seen in the film, would qualify as era 1.   The ex GWR toad and the Loriot with Dan's house mounted on it would surely not?

[Nearholmer]

3 minutes ago, adb968008 said:

Is Florence Nightingale a secret railway enthusiast ?

Possibly not. She was mad keen on keeping cats, and I’m sure I heard a story that she accidentally left one on a train at Watford Junction which, if true, must have coloured her opinion of railways.

 

I do vaguely remember seeing The Lady with the Lamp about a zillion years ago on TV, my recollection being that it seemed mostly dark, and rather dull, but I was probably only about six or seven at the time, so probably wasn’t the target audience. I don’t remember any trains.

[MarkSG]

One other aspect of any potential IP dispute is the three-way nature of it. Under normal circumstances, what would tend to happen in this kind of situation is that StudioCanal would threaten to sue Hornby, and after a bit of sabre-rattling they'd both agree to settle out of court. That wouldn't be an admission of liability on Hornby's part, merely a hard-nosed commercial decision that it's cheaper to pay a smaller settlement figure than risk losing in court and have to pay a much larger amount in damages. Commercial IP disputes rarely end up in court unless either one or both sides are making a very bad risk assessment or there's an important principle at stake which goes beyond the merely financial. And I don't think either of those would apply to Hornby or StudioCanal in an otherwise bog-standard case of IP infringement.

 

If Hornby do settle with StudioCanal, though, that potentially leaves Rapido in the lurch. Because Hornby's Thunderbolt will, inevitably, damage sales of Rapido's, so Rapido would, at the very least, want compensation for that. A settlement between Hornby and StudioCanal that allowed Hornby to carry on making their version would then put Rapido in dispute with StudioCanal insofar that Rapido would have a valid complaint that StudioCanal are not upholding the exclusivity aspect of their agreement.  And then the tables are turned; instead of Rapido and StudioCanal being on the same side against Hornby, Rapido and StudioCanal would be on opposite sides of the dispute. Again, it would probably end up being settled out of court. But Rapido would be very much the minnow, and would probably have to settle for a figure significantly below their actual losses.

 

That would, in the long run, make Rapido the only real losers. StudioCanal would get their licence fee from Hornby. Hornby would only end up paying what they would have had to pay if they'd negotiated an agreement anyway (and what they, quite probably, budgetted to pay to begin with). Rapido would probably get back the value of any premium they paid StudioCanal for exclusivity (so that they only pay a standard, non-exclusive fee), but that wouldn't compensate them for the loss of sales caused by the existence of a rival product.

 

If I had my cynical hat on, I might even think that this outcome is precisely what Hornby would like.

[HonestTom]

40 minutes ago, adb968008 said:

I’d never heard of “The lady with a lamp” until yesterday.

Is Florence Nightingale a secret railway enthusiast ?

 

It sounds like a link as tenuous to a train film as that Deltic is on Newcastle viaduct in Get Carter.

The two definitive UK Railway Films are quite definitely The Railway Children and Titfield thunderbolt. Going beyond that probably Buster (or Robbery) but the general theme of the Great Train Robbery. St Trinians train robbery had a following too. The “First Great Train Robbery” had a following for a while, and if looking back further,  Brief Encounter, and Oh Mr Porter.

 

 

I'd say North West Frontier counts, but there's nothing remotely appropriate in Hornby's range (plus I suspect there are elements that might be considered problematic these days).

 

Brief Encounter strikes me as a good choice (include a resin model of the buffet for maximum appeal). It's a well-known and beloved film in which trains play a prominent role. If you were to ask the average person in the street to name three British railway films, you'd probably get The Railway Children, Brief Encounter and "Um... wasn't there a train in one of the Bond films?"

[Guest]

9 hours ago, PhilJ W said:

Surely Studio Canal would be able to demand royalties from Hornby for using the Titfield Thunderbolt name.

After watching Rapido's video response on you tube, it seems Studio Canal are not happy and could easily bankrupt Hornby if they do a 'slap' suit against Hornby.

 

[Andy Hayter]

10 hours ago, mdvle said:

 

Could a person back then imagine the variety of new tooled items being created each year, all competing for the hobby pound?

 

Measuring a single metric - the size of a production run of a single item - without considering the market as a whole is misleading.

 

Looking at the mobile phone market, anyone looking at the number of Blackberry phones would think the mobile phone market was in trouble....

 

I agree it is not definitive (which is why I started the post with "As a throw away statistic"), that does not mean that it is not indicative.

 

If you think to back then with Hornby producing perhaps only a dozen or so new models (locos and stock) in a year - but in batches of 10-20,000 - and then compare to today with a clutch of manufacturers producing between them perhaps several times that number of new releases in a year but with batch sizes that probably don't exceed 5,000 for most models and may be in the few hundreds for others, then I think you can see that more models were probably produced back then although the range of models was undoubtedly much more restricted.  [I have excluded things like re-liveries in this broad brush analysis.] 

 

You are very right though that the markets were very different back then.  WE should therefore add in the numbers of kits being introduced each year back then in batches of perhaps 100 - 200 or so - maybe a bit more from the bigger producers like DJH, Ks, Nucast, PC Coaches etc..  This compares with relatively few kits produced today but in fairness we must add in the one off (essentially) 3D printed body-line (to use a 1970s term) stock.  

 

So it is not easy to make an absolute comparison of total items sold simply because as you say the market was then very different.  However, what I don't think is widely disputed is that the number of people modelling (in the widest sense of the word) has diminished.