"Railroad Official Standard" & “Railmaster Official”

pennsyl936

Hello, I am a new member to OF and would like to thank you in advance for the opportunity to gain any insight you may be able to offer regarding the Omega white lacquer dialed Railroad Official Standard and Railmaster Official models from the 60’s. I am from the mid-western US and have been somewhat obsessed with these the past several years. I have searched the internet as best I can but it seems the information available is somewhat incomplete.

A story I often see repeated - worded a variety of ways is something about the Ball family company suing Omega in 1963 due to the similarity in looks and/or the wording “Railroad Official Standard” which they had long used on their watches.

The Omega website only mentions a 1963 model made for Canada:
“OMEGA developed its automatic "Railroad Official Standard" model specially for the Canadian Pacific company. Its stainless-steel case housed the calibre 552 movement and had a white lacquer dial with easily legible Arabic numerals and minute circle.”

I have never come across one of these exactly as described. Does anyone here have one confirmed made for Canada Pacific?

I have been fortunate enough to have found and confirmed 2 similar variants also made in 1963 but were shipped to the US. Both have a white lacquered dial with, leaf hour and minute hands and a silver center second sweeping hand.

The first was a manual winding “Railroad Official Standard” with cal. 600 movement & case ref. 135.005

The second (currently my daily wearer) is an automatic “Railroad Official Standard” with cal. 550 movement & case ref. 165.001

Then there is the automatic “Railmaster Official” model which looks similar. All of this type I have picked up date from 1964 - 1968 which seems to coincide with the theory that Ball pressured Omega to stop using the wording “Railroad Official Standard” after 1963 (replacing with “Railmaster Official”) All I have come across are with a cal. 550, case ref 165.002 and have red center second sweeping hand instead of silver.

Funny, all of these variants have casebacks that say Seamaster instead of Railmaster….

Does anyone have one of these or similar? I’d love to see pics and hear any background info you might have.

TexOmega

Some thoughts

White dialed Railmasters with scratched backs are worth less than ones with non-scratched backs.

Fingerprints will be permanently displayed if not cleaned off fairly soon and also reduces value.

Try not to get to strike three with this uncommon and desirable watch.



A less than ideal dial would not bother me, this one looks quite nice.

Enjoy, but as Hippocrates stated....."first, do no harm."

Archer

I serviced one of these earlier this year...they are nice little watches and something you don't see every day...



The owner was in the US and when I asked if his family had any Railroad connections, he said they did not. Interesting that on the outside of the case back each one has a number stamped - in the case of the one above it's 2213, and the one I serviced was 1111. Came on a BOR bracelet...

Whoever services it will likely need parts, so if you have someone local with a parts account with Omega, that is probably your best bet.

Cheers, Al