Lets lay the blame where this one belongs, at the feet of UP brass. They are the ones who had to sign off on it. This subject is kind of a dead horse at this point. No need to keep flogging it.
Lets just say they (Corprate) has at last come to their senses. And write it off as an OOPS! They got alot of visability out of this feaisco, Who isn't talking about UP? Most of the corprate types have assended thru the ranks. They have done the ground pounding and the maul swinging and have worked their butts off to get where they are at.
Regarding the lawyers, well.... there are gunslingers, then there are hired gunslingers. The difference is, the hired ones usually don't care about right and wrong, just about the buck. And that's where too many lawyers are today. "I was just following orders" isn't a valid moral excuse. The "I didn't do it, it was the lawyers" doesn't fly for the bossguys either. Frankly, this one seems like the sort of thing that was cooked up by somebody (probably with a spankin' new MBA degree) who'd just come back from a "The Power of Branding" seminar, sold to some lawyers with too much time on their hands, and then the top brass have been too busy trying to keep their railroad functioning (the last few years have been tough operationally for UP, eh wot?) to keep a close eye on the scamps. One of the problems is, most effective lawyers (and its very unlikely that the top lawyers on this weren't effective) are that way in part because they are pit bulls. They live for the conflict, and the reaction from the MRR/railfan community probably just got their competitive juices flowing. Since the PR folks were almost certainly kept out of the loop until after the train had left the station... it took a change in leadership to put the airbrakes on. Bad PR, yeah.. Putting the offending lawyers and other suits out there cleaning some of the Building America units, and publicizing it, including WHY would be a brilliant way of earning some back, and not just with the railroading crowd. 90% of the public would remember it fondly. UP will have to be prepared to replace said suits and schysters, since they probably won't take kindly to being publicly smacked down. And no, this isn't an indictment of all corporate types, not even of most, but only of a few. From my perspective, corporations are a good thing, and it takes a certain type of person to make 'em work right. That, of course, is the rub, because it takes people, and people can do wacky, stupid, and sometimes nasty things. That's life. Anyhow, next time somebody wants to start railing on the evils of corporations, consider that without corporations, you'd have little to eat that wasn't sourced from within 30 miles of your home, air travel would be a true adventure, and the computer you're reading this on would cost about 50 times as much... Viva la corporation. (still, pummel most the lawyers.)
Many folks don't comprehend what a corporation is... They associate it with a big office building, and hundreds of scurrying people, in cubby holes a-plenty. Most corporations are small! Some only have one employee. It's merely an accounting and tax category..... Has nothing to do with size, or gross dollars, etc. Boxcab E50
Whereas UP, like any company, has a right to protect its intellectual property (trademarks and the like), their tascit of protecting said property was wrong on so many fronts. At least now they have now decided to follow ths same tactics other railroads use nowadays. And happily, the royalties are gone! Personally, the concept of having the suits perfroming such menial chores as locomotive scrubbing (one way to clean up the image, eh?) is humorous, and to model such an unlikely scene is comical, especially for us modelers who were forced to pay what we conceived were extortion fees. UP's major problem now is to figure out how to efficiently operate their railroad, something that has proven problematic (witness three traffic meltdowns in 10 years since the UP merger). For the record, I'm niether anti-corporation nor anti-lawyer, but I am anti-asinine policy. It's good to poke a little fun at things now & then- the modeled scene was a hoot.
"Viva la corporation. (still, pummel most the lawyers.)" I have looked at this post a few times over the last couple of days, deciding whether or not to respond. You are way off base. If you have an issue with our legal system, vote for a change in it. If you have a specific complaint about unethical behavior of an attorney, complain to the appropriate regulatory division overseeing such things.
If UP wanted to shine up their image, they should furnish decal makers and model makers with free decal art, and free design drawings to correctly represent the UP equipment. That would be a start.
