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Features:
The Royal Forest Hotel - A familiar London bus terminus reproduced in model form by Dick Dyche
I Couldn't Do That...So you think that you couldn't build a whitemetal kit of a six wheel, half cab double dec bus? Think again.
Paintshop Tips - Ian Morton offers some thoughts and suggestions.
Floreat Salopia - Mike Pannell restores a large scale observation coach.
Die-cast Digest - The BET 36' Single Deckers - The second article in our series looking at the various die-cast models available, what the modeller can do with them.
An Irish Quartet - Hugh Dougherty models his memories.
News, reviews and regular features:
Postbag
Die-cast Focus
EFE are out of trouble.
Hong Kong Focus
Recent releases illustrated.
Product Reviews - Featuring the OOC Midland Red C5 coach.
Product News
Bookshelf
Road Test - The Lancer Models Midland Red S17 Kit
Road Test - PSG Models Optimo IV - Arnold Chave builds the second kit from PSG Models.
Not On Service
Duty Roster
Gallery
Transport for London (TfL) is currently attempting to seek out everyone who it believes might be using London Transport logos and the Johnston typeface for commercial purposes without their permission. Ostensibly this is to ensure that items that bear LT logos are of a suitable quality and don't reflect badly on the capital's transport undertaking. You can't really quarrel with that.
But there seems to be a secondary agenda here. Money. Basically TfL wants 5% of the trade price of any articles sold bearing any of their logos. Without exception. It doesn't matter if you are selling key rings to tourists by the thousand or individual handbuilt models to collectors. They also want an extra 5% discount if they buy any of the items that are produced, the items can't be sold at more than 25% discount without their say-so and the products can't even be advertised without TfL's prior written approval.
Whilst this may not be an unreasonable demand to place on large companies, it means that for the small scale suppliers serving our hobby producing any decals or models bearing anything that TfL consider to be their intellectual property is either going to be expensive or impossible. Surely it would be possible to exclude the smaller players? The small suppliers are dealing with transport enthusiasts who won't form an opinion about TfL on the basis of a set of decals. Perhaps TfL could consider excluding concerns with a turnover of less than £50,000? After all, alienating the enthusiasts is hardly a good PR move is it?
