Running trains on time / What time is it anyway?

[pbjwilson]

Received a fascinating book for fathers day, Seize the Daylight by David Prerau, the curious and contentious story of daylight savings time. For anyonr interested in time, clocks, and timekeeping it's a great read. Alot of railroad interest as the railroads dictated the time zone implimentation.

A tidbit from the book - "In 1872 there were more than seventy railroad "time zones" in the United States, with boundaries set according to each company's geographic coverage. Under such a system, it was not unusual for passengers traveling from Maine to California to adjust their watches more than twenty times en route, and in 1880, trains in Wisconsin alone were operating according to thirty-eight different railroad times."

Of course in 1872 a journey across the U.S. of that nature was difficult and perhaps never accomplished, but the fact that such discrepencies lead to the Standard Time Zones and Standard Time.

The book goes into the use of Daylight Savings Time which in it's day, and probably still to this day by some, was a radical theory and took years to be implimented.

[FJ and G]

They should either make standard time standard year round or make daylight savings time standard year round. Not both.

To add to the confusion, 2 states don't use daylight (actually portion of 1 state)..

During rush hour, the change to daylight and back adds 2 periods of the year when the sun is in your eyes, thus congesting traffic, leading to accidents, and wasting fuel.

[Big_Boy_4005]

Time keeping issues for the real railroads became such a problem, because time was determined locally. It was becomming dangerous, since signaling technology was not very sophisticated.

When the sun passed directly overhead, it was noon. At every different longitude noon was at a different relative time. The railroads got together and formed time zones, and standard time. Now it doesn't matter where the sun is. At the center of the time zone the sun still passes directly overhead at noon, but further to the east or west, noon is either early or late by definition.

The reason parts of Indiana and all of Arizona don't participate in daylight savings time is that they are on the edges of their time zones, and the shift would make for strange daylight hours, compared to what the clock said.

[cnw1995]

I thought Indiana was considering a change - I used to live in South Bend - where time never changed....

[lionelsoni]

Indiana decided in April to go to daylight-saving time, starting in 2006.

[laz 57]

Does anybody really know what time it is?
A song by The Chicago Transit Autority back in 70 or 71?
laz57

[csxt30]

Laz, I think we have to check the ATOMIC clock! Whateverv that is. I remember My Dad always used to be so exact on the time, my Mom would ask him what time it was & he would say 6:02, where we might say it's 5 after or just get close. He worked on th RR early 1920s & was used to trains being exact on the time. They always had pocket watches,too. Old westerns used to make reference to Railroad time in some shows. Thanks, John

[pbjwilson]

John,
When daylight savings first went into effect congress asked the railroads what time of day had the least rail traffic. They responded with 2am, still the time we change our clocks today. Also The American Railway Assoc. was against the time change, back in 1918, as they figured there were 1.698,818 clocks and watches that needed to be changed. If anyone forgot to change the time on there watch some mishap might occur.

[ChiefEagles]

Hasn't GMT [always got it from the BBC] now been named something else.

[lionelsoni]

The modern equivalent of GMT is UTC, for "coordinated universal time". (There are other kinds of universal time of interest mainly to astronomers.) The principal innovation is that the second is now constant, whereas it used to be adjusted to keep the day synchronized with the earth's rotation. That is now done by inserting "positive leap seconds" occasionally. (They can also be omitted, "negative leap seconds"; but the earth has been running slow ever since UTC was introduced.)

[Anonymous]

I go along with what this guy wrote back in 1947:

"I don't really care how time is reckoned so long as there is some agreement about it, but I object to being told that I am saving daylight when my reason tells me that I am doing nothing of the kind. I even object to the implication that I am wasting something valuable if I stay in bed after the sun has risen. As an admirer of moonlight I resent the bossy insistence of those who want to reduce my time for enjoying it. At the back of the Daylight Saving scheme I detect the bony, blue-fingered hand of Puritanism, eager to push people into bed earlier, and get them up earlier, to make them healthy, wealthy and wise in spite of themselves."

[laz 57]

JOHN, I still think the ole pocket watch keeps better time the some of these digitals.
laz57

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by laz 57

Does anybody really know what time it is?
A song by The Chicago Transit Autority back in 70 or 71?
laz57

Does anybody really know what time it is?
Does anybody really care?
If so, I can't imagine why.
We've all got time enough to die.
[Insert horn music.]

Here in Saskatchewan, we don't use daylight savings time. Some people have said that we should, but nothing has ever come of it and I personally don't want to go to it. I like things the way they are, although it is annoying having all the TV stations (except for the local ones, of course) moving their schedules an hour ahead or back twice a year. But you get used to it.

In regards to railroad pocket watches, back in the day, there would be regular inspections of the watches of every railroad man. If your watch was more than 30 seconds out, you weren't allowed to go back to work until you had it checked and certified by a jeweler.

[eZAK]

Just adjust it a 1/2 hour and be done with it!

"I used to live in South Bend - where time never changed...."
Doug, Why would you ever leave if time never changed?[:D]
Or could you ever leave?[%-)]

Just a note;
There is a company selling watches that are tuned to the atomic clock in Bolder.
According to the adds they will self adjust to the correct time anywere in North America!

[Anonymous]

If you google "Day of two noons" you'll find out more than you really want to know about time zones. Here are the first few, just to whet your appetite.

http://www.fremo.org/betrieb/timezone.htm
http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5748/
http://www.taemag.com/issues/articleid.15597/article_detail.asp
http://www.nawcc.org/museum/nwcm/galleries/depot/depot.htm

Bob

[csxt30]

WOW, there is a lot of History & info here, & I saved all those sites to read later on. I like the onfo on pocket watches, as they always fascinated me a lot. So now I take it there is no more Greeich village time we learned about in school yrs, ago? Thanks, Paul for bringing us this topic!

[laz 57]

SASK that is why I still like tje POCKET WATCH, like JOHN says its fascinating.
laz57

[lionelsoni]

Not only is there no Greenwich mean time, making the second constant allowed the meter (and therefore the inch) to be redefined. The distance that light travels in a vacuum during one second has been defined since 1983 to be exactly 299 792 458 meters; so there is no longer any need for scratches on metal bars and such.

So we can now say that the standard American railroad gauge is the distance that light travels in 4786978 femtoseconds (4786645 femtoseconds elsewhere, where the standard gauge is 1435 millimeters instead of 56.5 inches). For American O gauge that is 105906600 attoseconds, and 74134620 for S, in case you want to check your track.

[ChiefEagles]

I know my weather station in the kitchen has time controled by radio waves from Colorado or somewhere out there. Bob probably knows about that and can explain. [?]

[Anonymous]

This link will take you to WWV
http://tf.nist.gov/timefreq/stations/wwv.html
And this one to a free program that keeps your computer clock on time. Supposedly Windows XP has a similar program built in.
http://thinkman.com/
I also have a clock controlled by wwv. The first year I had it, I had to go pee around 2AM when daylight saving time came in. Heard a noise in the kitchen and it was the clock correcting itself. Not many can (or want to) say they saw DST come in.
Bob
I have gone looking for myself, if I should return before I get back please ask me to wait.

[lionelsoni]

Bob, if you want to expand your time-change observing hobby to include leap seconds, they are more conveniently observed than the switch to DST. Leap seconds are inserted at universal-time midnight, which is in the evening in the western hemisphere, at the end of June and the end of December. The last minute of the month has 61 rather than 60 seconds.

I find that it is important to consider in advance how you are going to spend the extra time, since it is usually too late to think of something to do at the last second (so to speak).

Unfortunately, there is no leap second scheduled for next week.

[Anonymous]

[8)]

Pocket watches are nice, and they surely were built to be accurate. However, it is not really true that they are more accurate than modern digital watches. The quality of a watch used to correlate with its accuracy, but that really became a non-issue after the widespread introduction of inexpensive digital quartz watches in the early 1980's. Now, any $10 digital watch made in China is not only as accurate as the best Rolex or Patek Phillipe, but it may indeed be more accurate. [8D]

A watch with a drained battery will not keep accurate time, but that does not mean that a cheap digital watch is not as accurate as the fanciest pocket watch or the fanciest wrist-watch. [:)]

[Anonymous]

>>Bob, if you want to expand your time-change observing hobby to include leap seconds...snip<<
Hey I had to pee, DST got in the way, don't know if I could do it in a leap second.


Webb C. Ball established the standards for RR watches, after a train wreck in 189something or other. Among the standards was a requirement to be accurate within 30 seconds per week. The significant fact is that the watch making industry met the standards with a mass produced instrument that a RR worker could afford, and many of them are still doing it.
I have several RR watches(including a Ball), all of which would take some work to be that good again. Modern throw-away quartz watches are much more accurate, but if you want to get some kicks, take the back off a 100 yr old pocket watch and wach it run.

Bob