I will send an email to Willamette Industries for a license request. I have been scouring microscale's website for holes in their coverage of railroads that we have pending licenses with, and I have found a few. They don't have a specific set for BN and CB&Q Commuter trains in Chicago. We all Know that that they discontinued their Metra sheet, and I am closet to getting a license with them too. Sabrestar is also working on lots of aircraft decals also, which I think will be a bit more profitable than the railroad ones. I am starting to see why Microscale has the monopoly on decals. But I am not in this for profit, h*ll, I don't even own the majority of the company, I'm actually just doing this to make it easier for me to make custom models for myself, and its more economical to print more than one sheet, and sell them to offset printing costs.
We really need SP&S passenger decals especially for heavy weights. I would think any decals for the M-T heavyweight cars would be a hot item.
Are you familiar with the great UP Licensing fiasco a few years back? That pretty much set the bar for how obnoxious a railroad could become, and also how they chose to back down in the face of negative publicity. UP basically set about being as controlling on everything as John Deere, and it kinda backfired. But the program is still very much there, just not the horrible fees. In some ways is the model for a publicly-held railroad to control their imagery if they so choose. Some corporations are truly defensive on certain items, heck UPS will come after you if you even call something a UPS truck rather than 'package delivery' and making decals is the kiss of death. Caterpillar so closely guards their yellow its copyrighted, same with John Deere Green. Railroads historically haven't chosen to harass modelers, not because they couldn't, but because they hadn't, and the UP incident was the first major railroad to reverse that, then somewhat retract it. You'll see these copyright and licensing issues all over the map for both decals and models. I had an incident myself where Kalmbach turned me down cold on publishing photos of my scratchbuilt Joe's Bar in Flagstaff, AZ, because of the distinct Coke logos on the signs. They considered it copyright exposure to even explain how I used actual photos for the signs. It can get really wierd out there.... Truth be known we've been extremely fortunate, overall, that the corporations haven't chosen to come after modelers, and in general, have evolved to a permit system rather than a license fee. The permit basically lets them take a look at what you are doing and decide if it isn't making them look stupid. Modelers are such a fanatically fussy bunch that's usually not the problem. I'd like to think they are simply trying to prevent this: http://www.legends.dinerz.com/images/front shot.jpg
I completely understand what you mean, and some railroads do charge licensing fees, so just BNSF, a whopping $1 for 3 years, which isn't bad. The catch is that they want to see samples of what you are selling, and want know where you are selling it, and who to. About to sign our second License agreement this week with CSX, which isn't bad progress. We also decided to offer services in addition to decals. We are toying with idea of actually making custom painted locos on commission, as well as a kitbashing service, where we will kitbash locos for modelers not comfortable enough doing it themselves.
How about some for Ferromex? AC4400CW? Im sure FVM will do the SD70ACE! I hope this works out for you! dave
I hate to give you a suggestion for a decal sheet and not have it sell...but there's one that Microscale doesn't make anymore (and never was 100% correct). FEC SD40-2s (ex -UP). Microscale discontinued their sheet in N scale. Plus it used a bold font for the long hood "Florida East Coast" lettering. Only one of their units used bold lettering, the rest were normal font. Anyway, I'd buy a few sheets for those locos. Also modern Georgia Northeastern diesels as well. Microscale made some for them as well but they are for their older diesels I believe. Edit - Again, hate to give you a bad suggestion so it's worth mentioning that FEC has sold off some of their ex-UP units and some are being repainted in their heritage scheme, which MS already makes.
How about Wisconsin and Southern? It's in the newest Kato SD40-2 release, but beyond that, it's almost impossible to find anything WSOR related, as the only company that did make WSOR decals is out of business. They primarily use GP38s and SD40-2s, so you could hit the majority of their fleet with just one set. I'll even help you with a few sheets I already have and prototype pictures I'd be the first to buy! Alex
I havent checked highball graphics, but when i emailed microscale, they said they had no plans of doing these. Do you have a link? Were they for ac4400cw? thanks
thanks for the suggestions guys, I will look into all of them, licenses take a while to get, but Caltrain just sent us a license to sign, and I know Microscale doesn't do them! Things are moving very fast, once we hear from a few more class 1's we will start making some sheets. Any suggestions on printing companies we can use?
orionfield - you may want to look again at Microscale because they do make CalTrain. Used them before KATO came out with their F40's.
We're having some issues getting in contact with some of the smaller railroads that you guy suggested, but we are pushing forward!
What about Great Lakes Central? If you get a chance, their roster is very small and consits of GP35's, GP38-2's, and some switcher.
