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A statement on The Titfield Thunderbolt.


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4 hours ago, phil-b259 said:

 

Painting Olton Hall in red / making a model of it does not infringe the WB Harry Potter IP as long as (1) you don't call / refer to it as 'Hogwarts Castle' and (2) the totem on the tender is the 'British Railways' one and not 'Hogwarts Railways'

 

You should note that the basic premise of painting a loco red cannot be covered by IP rights and because the lining the loco carries in the film is basically the same as the publicly owned 'British Railways' used then neither can be considered IP of WB

 


Plus Triang released the Hall in red in the 1970’s as Lord Westwood !

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Edited by Mark Saunders
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8 hours ago, phil-b259 said:

Unless Hornby are planning to put them on sale from late spring I think its fair to say that its not too late to halt production.

I am not sure the would necessarily be the case.  Accurascale, who I am only using as an example because they give regular updates, put their Deltic into production in March 2021(newsletter dated 9 February 2021) and they are expecting it to be in the UK in mid-March 2022 (newsletter dated 30 December 2021). 

 

Hornby may have a bit more sway over its production but I suspect that, even for a November delivery date, they must be at an advanced stage and it is probably too late to amend production schedules, due to the knock on effect on producers' other customers, without a significant delay in delivery.

 

Roddy

Edited by Roddy Angus
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11 hours ago, phil-b259 said:

 

Well yes, technically that would be permissible from an IP perspective - though Rapido would then need to cover up any references to Hornby on the merchandise and in any case why would they want to do that when they have their own in house product to sell? Its not as though Rapido have only just started development on its models and can short cut the development process by selling re-badged Hornby stuff is it.

 

9 hours ago, Covkid said:

Do you really think Jason Shron would buy Hornby products commercially ?

 

I don't for a moment think that this would happen. I was just being (unnecessarily) pedantic.

 

10 hours ago, colin smith said:

NB. I'm currently taking courses in proofreading. I wonder if I could interest Hornby in my services.

 

 

I wonder if they're still describing their 0-4-0 engines as "spritely" rather than "sprightly"? Maybe they've stopped now the motors have been tamed a bit.

 

9 hours ago, ruggedpeak said:

To clarify, model trains are not toys under the Toy Safety Directive. Here's the relevant extract:

 

 

Ah most interesting. 

 

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8 hours ago, phil-b259 said:

But pretty much all UK RTR is not made within the UK or the EU - its made in China by 3rd parties and as such would be subject to significant extra customs charges when the likes of Hornby / Bachmann / etc bring it into the UK or EU.

 

By making sure their products fall under the WTO 'Toy' category there is zero duty to be paid worldwide - however IIRC 'scale models' do in fact attract duty under WTO rules!

 

So there is a financial incentive for Hornby to make sure they are classed as a 'toy' company, even if most of their products fall outside the scope of the toy safety legislation as highlighted by ruggedpeak above.

 

Do you know what the tariff would be if they were classified as scale models?

 

When I've had to look up tarriffs it's been for rather different products but I've rarely found anything higher than around 2%.

 

Bearing in mind this would be on the cost that Hornby pay for manufacture and shipping, not the sale price, I can't see it having a huge impact on prices.

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11 hours ago, colin smith said:

I would say that my mental image of Bobbie from The Railway Children was somewhat affected by seeing Jenny Agutter in Walkabout, but that's another issue.

 

Indeed. I was trying not to go there but since you've raised the point, how I see Lion in The Lady with a Lamp is affected by having seen it in The Titfield Thunderbolt. Vide Persse McGarrigle and The Influence of T.S. Eliot on Shakespeare.

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12 hours ago, colin smith said:

Am I reading this right? It's from Hornby's website: https://uk.Hornby.com/products/trains-film-seen-titfield-thunderbolt-train-pack-era-1-r30093

What it appears to say is that this is NOT a model of the Thunderbolt. Instead, it's actually a model of Lion masquerading as Thunderbolt. Now, my main interest is writing novels so I'm used to metafiction but I haven't seen metafiction applied to model railways before. Presumably, Hornby could take their GWR Hall, paint it red and stick on a nameplate and say it's a model of Olton Hall masquerading as the Hogwarts Express. 

NB. I'm currently taking courses in proofreading. I wonder if I could interest Hornby in my services.

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As I mentioned before there are classes within IP law of “passing off” and “lookalike” both of which are solid cases for litigation, it is for lawyers and a judge to decide how close to the wind this product will be sailing.

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4 hours ago, PaulRhB said:

A review of sugar free sweets springs to mind, “induced catastrophic flatulence”

 

1 hour ago, wombatofludham said:

Sorbitol.  The sweetener which should have been named Sore-bot-ol.

 

And worse...

 

https://www.boredpanda.com/hilarious-comments-sugarfree-haribo-gummies/

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12 minutes ago, Bernard Lamb said:

A good few months to go yet going by my experience.

Only 19 pages on the Hornby film topic in total.

Rapido well ahead on points at the moment.:D

Bernard

I don't think Hornby have scored a single point yet, just a few own goals.

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Having checked with Rapido, the Titfield Thunderbolt sets will be available through North American distributors who already carry Rapido products. This means I could and did order one from my local hobby shop here in the San Francisco Bay Area.  No postage/shipping or customs to worry about. I understand they will be supplied to distributors from Rapido's Ontario warehouse which would mean some are being shipped to Canada in addition to the UK. 

 

Note: for what little UK stuff I am buying these days I usually go through Kernow, Rails or Hattons. For my HO Southern Pacific modeling, I am focusing these days on small specialized resin and plastic kit makers in the US and Canada. The large  US RTR makers are not making much steam era (ended for me in 1956)  equipment other than Rapido. 

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I am now ready to commit to one of these sets, (that can be use to recreate scenes from one of my favourite films).

 

It’s an obvious choice as to which set to order, as one looks “tacky” and the other is rich in well thought out detail. (Even though both look like they come from the same film.)

 

I will ring my “local” model shop and see if I can order it from him.

 

I’m not saying which set I’m going to pre-order, (just in case there are any “out of work” ambulance chasers reading this thread), but I think I will be well chuffed when it arrives.

 

 

Kev.

 

In an unrelated note, I have decided that I now don’t need (or want) a new blue “Head code” class 31, a class 110 DMU, some RTC MK1s, a generator van (that I really really did want before), or an 802.

 

 

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On 13/01/2022 at 19:04, chris p bacon said:

18 pages......Are they in court yet :rolleyes:

And that is only the half of it, another 18+ on the Hornby thread, Trains on Film where most but not all are about the same thing.  In terms of views and comments it outstrips all of the other Hornby 2022 announcement topics over there.  Who knew there were so many IP and copyright experts on RMWEB.

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54 minutes ago, Waverley47708 said:

And that is only the half of it, another 18+ on the Hornby thread, Trains on Film where most but not all are about the same thing.  In terms of views and comments it outstrips all of the other Hornby 2022 announcement topics over there.  Who knew there were so many IP and copyright experts on RMWEB.

 

Just as well I haven't visited that thread then.  I actually think the fact is that many folk just want what is offered, but want to see it done fairly. That might be folk fed up with stuck on trains for hours due to people protesting about this that or the other, or even threatening to kill themselves.  There are also the folk who don't want to see vandalism and even moreso the vandals getting away with the crimes. So in those terms the Titfield saga seems pretty tame in real life, but obviously isn't at all. 

 

Just waiting to see the outcome - assuming there is one.  Or do Hornby continue with their advertised project ?

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1 hour ago, Waverley47708 said:

And that is only the half of it, another 18+ on the Hornby thread, Trains on Film where most but not all are about the same thing.  In terms of views and comments it outstrips all of the other Hornby 2022 announcement topics over there.  Who knew there were so many IP and copyright experts on RMWEB.

 

They say there's no such thing as bad publicity....

 

(I don't think it's true though)

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I was chatting to MrsTea earlier and I ended up trying to explain ‘Titgate’ to her. I reckon she summed it up very succinctly:

’If they don’t like it (what Hornby are doing) then they just need to buy the one made by the other guys.’

I think that’s a fair summary.

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On 11/01/2022 at 11:16, Dunsignalling said:

 

Jointly presented with Sam? 

Suspect the lawyers could become the ultimate winners at the expense of the hobby, both from a PR stance and financially as no doubt any costs incurred will be passed on to us as the customer to protect company profits, which is completely understandable I guess.  In the meantime it pushes models like this more and more out of the reach of the funds I have available.  I would have loved one of these sets.  Oh well back to finding bargains for rework on Ebay I guess.

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6 hours ago, bodmin16 said:

Suspect the lawyers could become the ultimate winners at the expense of the hobby, both from a PR stance and financially 

 

Hopefully this won't go further than a boiler-plate cease and desist letter.

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9 hours ago, bodmin16 said:

Suspect the lawyers could become the ultimate winners at the expense of the hobby, both from a PR stance and financially as no doubt any costs incurred will be passed on to us as the customer to protect company profits, which is completely understandable I guess.  In the meantime it pushes models like this more and more out of the reach of the funds I have available.  I would have loved one of these sets.  Oh well back to finding bargains for rework on Ebay I guess.

But in terms of purchasing one the announced (thus far) Hornby price is only £70 less than the equivalent train pack from Rapido and for that £70 you also get an accurate AA20 brakevan.   By the look of things so far, with the Hornby pack not being made available to some (all?) Tier 1 retailers, there looks like a minimal chance of it being discounted whereas one retailer is advertising a discount on the Rapido price which brings it in at just over 10% above the Hornby price.

And Hornby don't appear to need any bills from the legal trade to push their prices higher judging by their recent increases.

 

 

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Whatever the legal standpoint is, or isn’t on this it’s just not what the hobby / industry is about. If this was a first for Hornby then maybe it could be forgiven as one of those things let the best firm win etc. But it stinks of poaching, combine with Hornbys retailer tier system now it feels like it’s all about taking money out of our pockets not progressing the hobby.

 

Okay, the private finance firm who own a majority stake in Hornby want their returns as it natural. But you can (well you can, they are) portraying a friendly family firm on one face, and on the other a money grabbing screw you lot on the other.

 

I would also say, there’s another significant battle of the Manors fast approaching with Dapol, and Accurascale - although I think maybe that was a genuine case of two firms keeping their plans quiet with the other breaking cover once the first was announced.

 

   

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32 minutes ago, Courtybella said:

I would also say, there’s another significant battle of the Manors fast approaching with Dapol, and Accurascale - although I think maybe that was a genuine case of two firms keeping their plans quiet with the other breaking cover once the first was announced.

 

   

 

A significant, but importantly, a legitimate battle!

 

(There being no IP rights necessary with respect to stock operated by British Railways or the private companies it was created from).

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