Hi Peter; I checked the railmaster site. While the RS-1 is "listed", it is also shown as "N/A" under the price. That doesn't mean it is permanently unavailable, but it is certainly not shown as available for purchase right now.
It is worth considering in the price of the model that the example on bay was assembled, so it was certainly worth more than the kit (assuming a good assembly job). Pieter E. Roos --- On Mon, 7/30/12, Peter Vanvliet <[email protected]> wrote: Tom, Contact Railmaster Hobbies directly to find out the truth (http://www.railmasterhobbies.com/). I think the eBay listing was probably true if the lister had bought the kit directly from Railmaster in New Zealand (which, I believe, is no more). However, I believe Railmaster Hobbies in California now owns the entire line, and I see the kit still listed on their web site. I have one of the Railmaster Hobbies' RS-1 kits with the North Yard chassis. The engine runs great at moderate speeds on our Houston S Gaugers club layout. It easily does a full 8-11 hour duty of running around the loop all day, with no stammering, no derailing, etc. I have the Soundtraxx Tsunami installed, which never seems to overheat in that engine. However, here at home where I can only run at slow speed, it seems noisy and jerky, especially in reverse. It seems like the longer I run it, though, the better it gets. Maybe the mechanism just needs to be worn-in, but think in terms of months, not hours of running time. - Peter.
