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To Hell With "Railroad Time"

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Posted by samfp1943 on Thursday, February 2, 2017 3:37 PM

Johnny (Deggesty) said "...Yes, some people have great difficulty with time changes. Conductor Moedinger presented a nice vignette in one of the installations of his memoirs. A lady asked him what time they would arrive at a certin station, and he told her. She then asked her if the time were daylight or standard. After he failed to get her to understand his answer, he said that they would arrive in so many minutes, and her response was, "Is that daylight or standard?"

To be certain that my watch shows the correct time as I travel, I simply remember which time zone I am in and add or subtract hours as is necesary..."

I was never satisfied about the time changes in Indiana effecting the milking of their cows.. Sigh  My former father-in-law [who was from Weeling, West By-god] loved to tell the story about going from Wheeling to Pittsburg, and how the time changed 7 times on that trip. Don't know how true that was, but never heard anyone challenge him on it.

 

 


 

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Posted by tree68 on Thursday, February 2, 2017 3:43 PM

I have a couple of NYC public timetables which reference the time change.

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Posted by CShaveRR on Thursday, February 2, 2017 4:34 PM

I have to take exception to the title of this thread:  standard time may be Railroad Time, but Daylight Savings Time was inflicted upon the railroads, just as it was on (nearly) everyone else.  (Don't get me wrong; I'd appreciate DST year-round, here at the eastern edge of the Central Time zone.)

Michigan was, in the old days, one of the hold-outs, sticking with Eastern Standard Time year-round (this changed in the 1966 or 1967 time frame mentioned earlier). But guess what:  C&O's Northern Region passenger trains, which were crewed out of Grand Rapids, were scheduled based on Chicago time (that should be refined to say the Chicago-to-Grand Rapids trains, as well as the branch-line trains from Holland to Muskegon).  That meant that in the summer, the Michigan trains ran earlier.  There was some compromise:  the morning trains from Grand Rapids and Muskegon to Chicago had their schedules adjusted by 30 minutes.  I also believe that the overnight passenger trains (mostly for mail) were based on the Michigan times.

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Posted by Norm48327 on Thursday, February 2, 2017 5:46 PM

Stay tuned Carl. Something is afoot in Lansing about DST.

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Posted by blue streak 1 on Thursday, February 2, 2017 7:30 PM

Time zones have generally creep westward.  Much of Indiana is eastern.  At one time most of east Tennessee and Georgia west of Atlanta was central and now is eastern.  Some of Alabama just west of Georgia is also eastern.  Past proposals to have all Alabama eastern have gone no where. Maybe because of AL - GA rivalary ?

Costa Rica and most of central America west is in central zone even tough CR is east of much of USA eastern.

It would be interesting to see what major time zone changes have occurred ?  Know that Boston really has problems not being in the Atlantic zone and probably welcomes DST.  1500 - 1600 dark times in winter there sucks.

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Posted by Deggesty on Thursday, February 2, 2017 7:31 PM

Cal, di you know that most, if not all, of Ohio was originally in the Central time zone? The line between the Eastern and Central zones is, I believe, the most adjusted of all the lines.

When my parents went from Virginia to Florida in January of 1919, they were told to change their watches in Columbia, S.C. In the thirties, railroads east and north of Atlanta operated on Eastern time; Bristol, Va.-Tenn, and Asheville, N.C. were change points. In 1947, Chattanooga was still in the Central zone.

Even now, the people who live in eastern Tennessee and have business in Nashville would like the boundary to be moved west of Nashville so they can get home earlier.

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Posted by mudchicken on Thursday, February 2, 2017 7:33 PM

Johnny: (We live in the "almost forgotten time zone")

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Posted by Electroliner 1935 on Thursday, February 2, 2017 9:16 PM

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Posted by CShaveRR on Friday, February 3, 2017 2:12 PM

Deggesty

Carl, did you know that most, if not all, of Ohio was originally in the Central time zone? The line between the Eastern and Central zones is, I believe, the most adjusted of all the lines.



I knew that Michigan was all Central at one point.  From Wanswheel's map, above, it's very obvious that the time zones were set up for the benefit of the railroads--look at all of the division points on the boundaries!  And the SP's Sunset route on Pacific Time all the way to Texas?  East of there, of course, it was the T&NO.

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Posted by Semper Vaporo on Friday, February 3, 2017 2:46 PM

CShaveRR
 
Deggesty

Carl, did you know that most, if not all, of Ohio was originally in the Central time zone? The line between the Eastern and Central zones is, I believe, the most adjusted of all the lines.

 



I knew that Michigan was all Central at one point.  From Wanswheel's map, above, it's very obvious that the time zones were set up for the benefit of the railroads--look at all of the division points on the boundaries!  And the SP's Sunset route on Pacific Time all the way to Texas?  East of there, of course, it was the T&NO.

Might be t'other way'round... division points might have been selected to be on the time boundaries for the convenience of making the timetables work from one division point to the next, without having to make time adjustements between division points.  I suspect that there used to be more division points because trains werer slower and division points were "1-day" apart.  Maybe they gravitated to the time region divisions as a 1-day distance got longer due to the faster train speeds.

Just surmising.Dunce

Semper Vaporo

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Posted by BaltACD on Friday, February 3, 2017 3:04 PM

Semper Vaporo
CShaveRR
Deggesty

Carl, did you know that most, if not all, of Ohio was originally in the Central time zone? The line between the Eastern and Central zones is, I believe, the most adjusted of all the lines.

I knew that Michigan was all Central at one point.  From Wanswheel's map, above, it's very obvious that the time zones were set up for the benefit of the railroads--look at all of the division points on the boundaries!  And the SP's Sunset route on Pacific Time all the way to Texas?  East of there, of course, it was the T&NO.

Might be t'other way'round... division points might have been selected to be on the time boundaries for the convenience of making the timetables work from one division point to the next, without having to make time adjustements between division points.  I suspect that there used to be more division points because trains werer slower and division points were "1-day" apart.  Maybe they gravitated to the time region divisions as a 1-day distance got longer due to the faster train speeds.

Just surmising.Dunce

I don't know where the exact time change line was in Indiana at the time, however, on the B&O's St. Louis Division (headquarters Washington, IN) the time change was observed at North Vernon, IN.  East of North Vernon was Eastern and West of North Vernon was Central.  As a Train Order Operator at North Vernon on had to be careful in OSing trains to the Train Dispatcher - The same Train Dispatcher had the territory from Storrs Jct. in Cincinnati to Shops at Washington, IN.

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Posted by sandiego on Friday, February 3, 2017 6:16 PM

Don't go by the time zone map wanwheel posted along with the time article; it does not show the time zone locations accurately but instead shows where the railroads changed time. If one refers to a US map it will be seen that the Central-Mountain time zone line is west of Long Pine, North Platte, Mc Cook, Phillipsburg, and Hoisington, sometimes considerably west of some of these towns. Likewise, Alliance is west of the time zone line, not at it. California is in one time zone (Pacific time), as wel as Arizona, and New Mexico (both Mountain time.

Most railroads made the time change at the division point closest to the time zone line. North Platte was in the Central zone but trains operating west of there were on Mountain time; when I worked there I seem to recall seeing two clocks in the company restaurant.

 

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Posted by Norm48327 on Friday, February 3, 2017 6:16 PM

Railroads could simplify their timekeeping by using GMT, aka UTC, or as we know it in aviation, "ZULU". One size fits all or no one.

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Posted by tdmidget on Friday, February 3, 2017 7:23 PM

Blue streak, All of Alabama is Centrl time.

Sam, you have it backwards, the navaho nation does observe DST. The Hopi nation does not.

A link to the only accurate map I could find:

https://www.google.com/search?q=piston+grinding+machine&biw=1366&bih=657&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi7wOi6kPXRAhVry1QKHa_aDKUQ_AUIBigB#tbm=isch&q=time+zones+u.s.a.+map&imgrc=fW_2PMsf3D2dcM:

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Posted by Deggesty on Friday, February 3, 2017 8:01 PM

In 1966, I was given an ACL Waycross (as I remember) ETT, which covered the ACL (but not AB&C) lines south and west of Savannah into Florida and Alabama--all were on Eastern time, even into Montgomery.

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Posted by blue streak 1 on Friday, February 3, 2017 8:24 PM

tdmidget

Blue streak, All of Alabama is Centrl time.

Sorry but since I live around there here it is in Wiki.  This time thing is more convoluted than one can imagine.

Alabama: Although all of Alabama is legally on Central Time, Phenix City and some the surrounding community of Smiths Station unofficially observe Eastern Time, as these areas are part of the metropolitan area of the considerably larger city of Columbus, Georgia in the Eastern Time Zone.[1] Lanett and Valley observe Eastern Time historically because they were textile mill towns and the original home office of their mills was in West Point, Georgia.

What would be great if we could get maps such as posted above by Wanswheel showing time zones in maybe 5 year periods ?

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Posted by blue streak 1 on Friday, February 3, 2017 8:33 PM

Although maybe not any more have heard that the old USSR was all on one time zone ( Moskow ? ) that would have covered over 8 normal zones.  Anyone know the situation today ?

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Posted by tdmidget on Friday, February 3, 2017 11:24 PM

blue streak 1

I've never been to Phenix city although I'm from Alabama (ROLL TIDE). I can't imagine why they would want anything in common with Columbus. The textile mill towns I feel the same way about. Why harken back to those days od company stores, mill villages and child labor, not much better than slavery? It would be interesting to know how railroads and airlines feel about these local irregularities.

 

 
tdmidget

Blue streak, All of Alabama is Centrl time.

 

 

Sorry but since I live around there here it is in Wiki.  This time thing is more convoluted than one can imagine.

Alabama: Although all of Alabama is legally on Central Time, Phenix City and some the surrounding community of Smiths Station unofficially observe Eastern Time, as these areas are part of the metropolitan area of the considerably larger city of Columbus, Georgia in the Eastern Time Zone.[1] Lanett and Valley observe Eastern Time historically because they were textile mill towns and the original home office of their mills was in West Point, Georgia.

What would be great if we could get maps such as posted above by Wanswheel showing time zones in maybe 5 year periods ?

 

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Posted by Paul of Covington on Saturday, February 4, 2017 4:12 AM

   This Alabama-Georgia thing sounds like Indiana across from Louisville,Ky.  Since the towns in Indiana are essentially suburbs of Louisville, they adhere to Kentucky time (EST).   When my sister moved there around 1969, Indiana did not observe daylight savings and Kentucky did, so that in summer these towns were two hours different from the rest of the state.   She said that if you asked someone what time it was, you were likely to get an "I don't know."

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Posted by jeffhergert on Saturday, February 4, 2017 4:30 AM

sandiego

Don't go by the time zone map wanwheel posted along with the time article; it does not show the time zone locations accurately but instead shows where the railroads changed time. If one refers to a US map it will be seen that the Central-Mountain time zone line is west of Long Pine, North Platte, Mc Cook, Phillipsburg, and Hoisington, sometimes considerably west of some of these towns. Likewise, Alliance is west of the time zone line, not at it. California is in one time zone (Pacific time), as wel as Arizona, and New Mexico (both Mountain time.

Most railroads made the time change at the division point closest to the time zone line. North Platte was in the Central zone but trains operating west of there were on Mountain time; when I worked there I seem to recall seeing two clocks in the company restaurant.

 

Kurt Hayek

 

 

The Central/Mountain time divide on the Rock Island was between the division points of Phillipsburg KS and Goodland KS.  I have some old employee timetables where at times Phillipsburg was where the time changed, others where Goodland was the point.

The Trains article in 1980 about the RI dispatchers had a picture of the desk that handled Des Moines to Denver/Colorado Springs.  It had two clocks for the two zones.

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Posted by rcdrye on Saturday, February 4, 2017 6:50 AM

Folks who live on the Alabama side of the Georgia line refer locally to "slow time" (Central) and "fast time" (Eastern). 

Massachusetts has a bill pending to study changing the state's timezone from Eastern with DST to Atlantic with no DST (equivalent to permanent EDT).  New Hampshire's house just passed a bill to go along with whatever Massachusetts eventually decides.

On the BNSF Northern Transcon, Mountain Time begins just west of the station in Minot ND, about 140 miles east of the official time zone boundary.

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Posted by blue streak 1 on Saturday, February 4, 2017 9:53 AM

tdmidget
 I've never been to Phenix city although I'm from Alabama (ROLL TIDE). I can't imagine why they would want anything in common with Columbus. The textile mill towns I feel the same way about. Why harken back to those days od company stores, mill villages and child labor, not much better than slavery?

Boy have you insulted these cities.

1.  Columbus - Phenix City now cosier themselves a  military town and has a great college as well. Job market is hurting for workers.

2.  Lanett AL, West Point GA the state line goes down the middle of the street and Valley AL all now consider themselves as a major manufacturing location.  The KIA  US auto plant and the many parts builders are supplying many jobs to the region.   

So the insult of calling them mill towns no longer is appropriate. 

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Posted by CSSHEGEWISCH on Saturday, February 4, 2017 10:08 AM

Since when was "mill town" considered an insult?  I grew up within 10 miles of at least half a dozen steel mills and the fathers of many of the people with whom I went to grade school worked in those mills.

The daily commute is part of everyday life but I get two rides a day out of it. Paul
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Posted by Deggesty on Saturday, February 4, 2017 11:13 AM

In the minds

CSSHEGEWISCH

Since when was "mill town" considered an insult?  I grew up within 10 miles of at least half a dozen steel mills and the fathers of many of the people with whom I went to grade school worked in those mills.

 

In the minds of many small-minded people, those who live in and work in mill towns are low class, and are not worthy of respect. Such people are to be pitied as they have no respect for those who make the lives of all the people better with their labors.

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Posted by BaltACD on Saturday, February 4, 2017 11:28 AM

Deggesty

In the minds

CSSHEGEWISCH

Since when was "mill town" considered an insult?  I grew up within 10 miles of at least half a dozen steel mills and the fathers of many of the people with whom I went to grade school worked in those mills.

In the minds of many small-minded people, those who live in and work in mill towns are low class, and are not worthy of respect. Such people are to be pitied as they have no respect for those who make the lives of all the people better with their labors.

Currently have a 'Dirty Jobs' marathon playing on Discovery Channel.  Since when are the labors that make the lives we all desire to lead insulting.  There are mill towns, coal mining towns, railroad towns, rubber towns, auto manufacturing towns - the list goes on and on to towns that were built around the primary economic activity that supports people calling it home.

To call manual labor insulting - shows the lack of real knowledge of those formulating the statement. 

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Posted by jeffhergert on Saturday, February 4, 2017 11:31 AM

Deggesty

In the minds

 
CSSHEGEWISCH

Since when was "mill town" considered an insult?  I grew up within 10 miles of at least half a dozen steel mills and the fathers of many of the people with whom I went to grade school worked in those mills.

 

 

In the minds of many small-minded people, those who live in and work in mill towns are low class, and are not worthy of respect. Such people are to be pitied as they have no respect for those who make the lives of all the people better with their labors.

 

 

That seems to be the general attitude, that's developed over the last 30 or so years, towards anyone who works in a blue collar job.  No matter where they live.

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Posted by sandiego on Saturday, February 4, 2017 12:41 PM

"On the BNSF Northern Transcon, Mountain Time begins just west of the station in Minot ND, about 140 miles east of the official time zone boundary."

In the 1970 BN timetable the time change was at Williston, N. D. (120 miles west of Minot and still in Central zone). When I was working for the BN (1989-on) Williston was no longer a crew change and ID crews ran from Minot through Williston to Glascow or Havre (don't remember which).

 

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Posted by Paul of Covington on Saturday, February 4, 2017 8:29 PM

jeffhergert

 

 
Deggesty

In the minds

 
CSSHEGEWISCH

Since when was "mill town" considered an insult?  I grew up within 10 miles of at least half a dozen steel mills and the fathers of many of the people with whom I went to grade school worked in those mills.

 

 

In the minds of many small-minded people, those who live in and work in mill towns are low class, and are not worthy of respect. Such people are to be pitied as they have no respect for those who make the lives of all the people better with their labors.

 

 

 

 

That seems to be the general attitude, that's developed over the last 30 or so years, towards anyone who works in a blue collar job.  No matter where they live.

Jeff

 

   Amen, Jeff.   That's been my impression, too.

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Posted by tree68 on Saturday, February 4, 2017 9:38 PM

jeffhergert
That seems to be the general attitude, that's developed over the last 30 or so years, towards anyone who works in a blue collar job.  No matter where they live.

It also seems to be the general attitude of those who live on the coasts, with regard to those in "flyover country..."

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