I've been looking online for information about the Bulova railroad grade 9362Q quartz models and I haven't been able to find much.
They were accepted for use with the Canadian railroad well into the late 1980s. The watch I saw had the date code N9 for 1979.
The movement is an ESA-ETA 9362 seven jewel "mechanical" quartz movement.
I saw one today but decided to hold off on the purchase until I did some research and I have come up with very little info about these watches.
Were they only issued to railroad workers, or could the general public buy them?
Can they be serviced? The date function on the watch I saw takes hours to change over when turning the hands, rather than changing instantly at midnight as it should. I didn't even check the quickset date change as I'm not sure how they work on these movements.
If anyone could shed some light on these watches I'd appreciate it. This example was in fairly nice shape with a full steel case and clean dial.
Old quartzes were pretty robust, but when they quit, they quit. Circuits degrade, as does the plastics used in the movt, and if you get a good one that is running, you could get it serviced. As far as I know, there is no modern replacement for this movt. It was designed to replace certain automatics, but again, not sure if that means you can just drop an auto in there. There are instances where you can. You'd have to take it to a watchmaker and see what they think.
Watchmakers are listed by location on the NAWCC website.
Thank you mybulova_admin and Reverend Bob for your replies.
This is a wrist watch. I was told on the NAWCC forum that they were indeed available to the public and were not just CN rail issued watches.
There is a newer quartz version that replaces this movment, but the second hand pinion is 0.20mm while the 9362 pinion is 0.25mm.
The movement is running but the date change issue worries me. It should change instantly at midnight when the hands are turned but on this watch the hands move past midnight and the date doesn't make a full change until about 6:30 AM.
Edited to add: Are these watches rare? The seller claims a rarity because they were only issued to CN workers, but if they were available to the public then how rare are they?