A Truly Rushed Hour

While that's possible, DfT have been happy to license the British Rail brand.

 

DfT apparently is Department for Transport. (Not from the UK, had to google it.)

 

Plausible but it didn't seem to stop them doing the prototype Class 801 for TS 2015.

 

Yep, and they will own the branding for all british railways in a few years. Not necessarily IP for the trains though, but it may be easier only dealing with one set of anal lawyers...

Who knows what licensing they made with Hitachi or whichever TOC was in charge at that time?

 

It was just in a generic white livery (the TS2012 version was in a special IET livery), nether operator specific so presumably it was only with Hitachi. What I'm saying is if the thing blocking the making of a 700 is the DfT as they specced it, surely the same would've gone for the 80x?

 

Even when he does get it done, as I have no doubts he will, it is up to DTG to release the update to the players...

 

It should be a swift update

 

RS3L was supposed to be as well

 

So when is this most likely semi effective update?

 

I've got the 80x test model in TS1 so know which one you're on about, but the livery of a train and the outline of the train itself are likely two different Intellectual Properties, owned by different companies in these cases.
The DfT may have specified it's capabilites and requirements in terms of performance etc, but the shape and design would have been down to someone else, and it's likely they hold the IP for the design of the units themselves.

 

Exactly