Interesting on how the bad lamps...didn't flash and flash.....instead it stayed dim...kinda like dead Rapid start would do here....but then about a minute it starts to try to turn on and finally turns on!!! But none of them really acted like an American rapid start which flickers on from dim to bright.... They don't act like rapid start here...they act like preheaters...our rapid start don't flash and blink...they just turn on from dim to bright in smooth flow.....a preheaters in USA uses starters and glows the ends and flashes sometimes....the programmed start in USA does not use starter but glows the ends for a few seconds and turns on...

Jace, the lamps on the fixture with the rapidstarts, are the ones near the door and their lamps aren't bad at all. The rapidstart ballasts in there are >30 years old, and so they have sometimes very long period of dim glow mode, before starting. The rest of the lamps that are ignited without this waiting period, haven't any rapidstart at all, but just preheat magnetic ballasts with and included electronic starters.
This is indeed surprised me that these antique ballasts in the fixture near the door are actually rapidstarts (One already replaced), despite they are igniting the lamps in the same manner of the rest, which are preheaters with electronic starters.
Eltam, called these ballasts, rapidstarts because they operating the lamps more faster then preheaters with glow starter, because there is no flashing during startup.
When lamps in these rapidstart reaches EOL, they just flickers 50hz and after all the emissive coating consumed, they just retains the dim glow discharge endlessly.

Rapid start have starters? In USA the rapid start does not have any starters at all.....but when reaching EOL...its the same as you discribed...

is your rapid start in series (one ballast 2 lamps) and when one goes EOL the other lamp does same thing?

Jace, you don't know what i say. Only the lamps near the door, that have the dim glow discharge after this brief turning off, operates by rapidstarts. The others operates just by preheaters with includes replaceable electronic starters each. All the ballasts here operates one lamp, so each fixture have two ballasts.
The two >30 years old rapidstart ballasts near the door (Which one replaced by similar ballast as the others), haven't any starters, but they do electrodes preheating and this is what special about Eltam rapidstarts for T12 40W lamps. The glow discharge of the lamps with these rapidstarts after this brief turning off, is a normal operation of the rapidstarts. It is just very long because of the age of the rapidstart ballasts.