The poor relation, no longer poor
By Julien Moreau, Geneva ·
The original Railmaster, the CK2914 of 1957, used to sit at the back of the Omega section in the sale catalogue, the shy cousin of the Speedmaster and Seamaster 300 it had been launched alongside. Collectors have since corrected that oversight, with some enthusiasm and a great deal of money, and a good original dial is now something people travel to see.
It was built for railway workers, engineers and scientists, men who spent their days near generators and needed something that would not be magnetised into nonsense. The modern Railmaster, back in the range since 2017, makes the same promise with far more confidence: the 8806 is a Master Chronometer certified against 15,000 gauss, with 55 hours of reserve, and it lives in a 40 mm steel case on a bracelet with a closed back and no date. Hours, minutes, seconds, and nothing to apologise for.
Tom, who has opinions about these matters, points out that 150 m is more than he asks of most of his students' watches, so you need not worry about the sea.
My reservation is aesthetic and, I admit, a little snobbish. The lume and the numerals are tinted to look aged, and I have never warmed to manufactured patina; patina is something a watch earns over forty years in a drawer in Bienne, not something applied at the factory. The case is also 12.6 mm thick, more than I would like for a watch this simple.
Still, at fifty-three to fifty-six hundred dollars, against a Rolex Oyster Perpetual you may or may not be allowed to buy, it is an easy recommendation for anyone who wants a no-date Omega with real history behind it.