…State lines and time zones to be exact. I was wondering if railroads erect markers or signs where the cross from one state or time zone into the next.
State lines, yes. Keep track of each time you cross a state or country boarder.
Most railroads use one standard clock for their operations. Generally these are unaffected except for adjustments at daylight savings, etc.
State lines yes, timezones no.
(Consult your employee timetable regarding locations where the zones change. They do not always match the public zone lines, especially in these days of longer crew districts. Railroad time zones tend to change in the terminals)
County lines and city limits sometimes if you know the railroads’ standard plans and know what to look for.
I have surveyed around a couple of former New York Central lines and it looks they installed a nice stone or concrete monument at the state line. It was triangular with the point on the line. The two faces that can be seen from the track have the state name or abbreviation, the third face is blank. IIRC, one was about 2’ wide per face and roughly 6’ above ground, the other on an abandoned branch was smaller about 1.5’ per face.
I know Amtrak somehow uses time zones to their advantage. Helps them make up time or something like that. I was on a late running train once, by a couple of hours, we crossed a time zone and were suddenly on time. Not sure how it works.
These are at the Nevada State Railroad Museum in Carson City.
Thanks for the answers. I know CSX has quite a natural marker down here on the SC/GA line, the Savannah River.
Some railroads may have markers at state lines but most don’t. CNW, BN (both former GN and NP), RI, SOO definitely did not have markers.
Time zone markers, never. Time zone changes are at nearest crew change. For example, at North Platte on the UP it’s Central Time for crews working east of NOP and Mountain Time for crews working west but the actual time zone change is 25 miles west of NOP between Sutherland and Paxton. This keeps the entire subdivn. on one time zone. It would be chaos with two time zones on the same subdivn.
Kurt Hayek
Funny you should mention North Platte…
At the grade crossing to the west of the yard is a sign prominently displaying that this is where Mountain Time ends and Central Time begins. I would assume that the opposite message is posted on the other side of the signposts.
I’ve often seen the NYC marker denoting the Michigan-Indiana border (never saw one like it on the C&O line nearby; I’m pretty sure there isn’t one). Don’t know if it’s survived to Amtrak ownership–I’ll have to check the next time I’m on U.S. 12.
I’ve gone past the Virginia-North Carolina border on U.S. 301 frequently and at that point, the CSX A Line (former Altantic Coast Line) is right next to the road - I’ve never noticed a marker from the road, but going past at 55 mph may not be the best way to tell whether something is there or not
The only other border crossing I’ve seen is that between Bristol, VA and Bristol, TN. No marker placed by the railroad (of course, the fact that the Virginia-Tennessee border is literally in the middle of the road, but the border is definitely marked)
http://penncentral2002.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=611504
Also I went past the WV-VA border at Bluefield, but didn’t examine the border area (did photograph some cutout signs and a bridge near the border).
A bit of railroad-related time trivia: Arizona does not observe Daylight Saving Time, a source of great confusion for the rest of the country and even many of the locals. That said, the class 1’s that operate here give out track warrants in DST.
John Timm
On the engineering side it IS chaos when we are working on a subdivision in which railroad time is not the same as local time. We might be living/lodging on Central time but working on Mountain time. West of N. Platte was exactly the place I was thinking of because we’ve gone through it out there. [:(]
penncentral2002: The Bristol state line is along the double yellow line and the brass marker you can barely make out was designed and built by a relative. Tennessee on south side and Virginia on the north side/. At one time the State line did not go down the center of the stree but was near the north side sidewalk but was changed sometime in the past.