Hey Jon,
I know what you mean regarding the YouTube videos of Europe's construction site. I too dream of something like that here in California. I'm from Los Angeles and I just bought a 1/14 scale komatsu PC700 excavator. It should arrive in 6 months.
Sacramento is not too far but it weighs close to 90lbs.!
I'm also into that whole scale scene but the cost of the nicer machines from scaleart, fumotec, premacon, damitz is quite a bit not to mention shipping it from there to here plus customs.... it adds up. Which is why we don't have it here
I hope one day that those companies open up in here in the states.
But for now RCT is the organization we need to support to get this going. I went to the RCX show and it was great seeing a few other that share the same interests.