The long battle for Standard Time undone? Don’t forget to reset you clocks, watches, cameras, etc tonight if you live where standard time gives way to fast time at 2 am tomorrow morning. See my story, “Railroad Time, Standard time, accurate time, reliable time and American clocks and watches” at http://RailroadGloryDays.com/RailroadTime
Hey – is that Howard a series 10 Railroad Chronometer? Let’s see a movement picture…
No, it is a series 11, 21 jewel, Railroad Chronometer. I’ll see if I can get a photo tomorrow.
I absolutely refuse to get up at 0200 to reset my clocks and my watch. My living room clock resets itself; my alarm clock is already reset; my clock that runs on 120 volts takes too long to reset until the power has gone off, and I simply remember what time zone I am in (as I do when I travel and do not reset my watch as I go east or west). If I were standing the first watch in the navy, I might consider resetting timepieces at that hour.[:)].
Here’s a series 11 movement to hold us over until you can get a picture…
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and by contrast, here is the immediately prior series10 Railroad Chronometer movement (with conventional high-grade bridge movement):
Now, one of the first things I usually hear about this is how ‘cheap’ the Series 11 looks in comparison with the older version. Let me put this in perspective. No one ever gets to see the movement of a working railroad watch – it’s not legal to open the case, or have a glass back, or in fact do anything to show off the exquisite damaskeening, fancy gold caps and ruby jewels, etc. that characteriize so many of the high-end railroad movements.
Meanwhile, the folks at the friendly railroad time service have to maintain these things to keep time to 30 seconds a week or better, and fix them whenever (and it’s when, not if) they get bashed. The Series 11 shares with the ‘new model’ 12s Howard movement a number of features that make servicing and repair much easier. See the funny-looking ratchet detent? That makes it easy to let down the mainspring without letting things slip, or scarring the plates if your hand slips. See how thin the upper plates are, and how their alignment is determined by more metal in the pillar-plate assembly? Easier to make, less expensive to fabricate, means more money can be put into the things that make for high accuracy in a watch. And the dialside and hands, please note, are at least as attractive as any series 5, or 10, or O-series dr
As a wise old Indian once said:
“Only a white man thinks that cutting a foot off the bottom of a blanket and sewing it back onto the top results in a longer blanket”
How sad it is that we are incapable of changing our work habits by an hour without pretending that time, itself, has actually changed.
Anothern wise old Indian said:
“Only a white man needs a watch to tell him when he’s hungry!”
Overmod, those are some georgeous old watches! I’ve got a few myself, but only two actual railroad grade. The gold fill on the back of one of them’s worn down to the base metal. Makes you wonder how many trips it’s made in and out of a railroad mans pocket.
By the way, when were those watches made?
On the other hand, many white men found the presence of sufficient natural light to accomplish necessary morning chores to be worth shifting their clock time… at high latitudes where diurnal variation with the seasons justifies it. There is, additionally, something peculiarly ‘American’ in the idea that it makes sense to change ‘accurate’ time both operationally – to simplify connections and timetables for an increasingly ‘national’-scope railroad system, as well as make ‘reality’ conform better to human circadian-rhythm preferences…
Saying that ‘time itself has changed’ when daylight-saving time comes on or off reminds me a bit of the Seventh-Day Adventists pointing out that the sequence of days of the week didn’t change when the calendars were adjusted. Nothing in UTC changes; nothing in GMT changes; the expression ‘time change’ is more a vernacular than “technical” phrase.
Now, I’d like to shift this discussion slightly – over to sly old Webb C. Ball and his timely cleverness in grandstanding the “official railroad watch” changes. Remember that Ball was not a major watchmaking force – he was a jeweler in Cleveland. Look up ‘smokestack jewels’ to get an idea of his style… prior to 1891. Interesting that the 19±jewel requirement comes in as part of the ‘new’ regulations. Even more interesting to see the various ways that increased jewels – ‘smokestack’ or otherwise (I am thinking of the Howard ruby banking pins, and getting to ‘19 jewels’ just with a motor barrel on the model 5, in particular!) – came into the design an
“On the other hand, many white men found the presence of sufficient natural light to accomplish necessary morning chores to be worth shifting their clock time”
Moving the hands of the clock does not, in any way, effect how much natural light is available to do morning chores. It is a silly tradition that causes many people who forget to change their clocks to mess up their daily schedule. There are always a few who are late for work because of it. It causes 24 hour job employees who are working during the change to demand overtime for the extra hour worked or to complain when employers only want to pay them for 7 hours. DST is not observed everywhere in the US, causing further confusion.
On the other hand, if they eliminated it I wouldn’t know when to change the batteries in my smoke detectors.
Overmod, your picture turned out better than mine. It isn’t easy to shoot a movement in a swing ring case. I gave it a try, but I’m sure I can do better when I have more time to set up the shot and use a tripod.
Keystone Howard 21 Jewel Series 11 Railroad Chronometer.
Some times, the “extra hour of daylight” is a false assumption. In 1966, I began scoring my town’s baseball and softball program for the young people (four games an evening when the PeeWee league played). I do not remember just what time the first game was played, but the temperature had cooled some by then (this was in West Central Alabama). The next year, the people in charge quickly realized that the first game had to be delayed an hour because at the start time by the clock the weather was too hot. So, there was no daylight gained for the ball games.
Those are nice pictures of something that is seldom seen.
You may have noticed the inscriptions concerning adjustment in various positions–they had to keep correct time, no matter what position they were carried in, or what temperatures they were exposed to. I do not think that anything but marine chronometers had to be more accurate than these watches.
Keep in mind that at least some of this is “marketing” – electric railroads and the like were often happy with only three positions, and there is very little ‘advantage’ in some of the positions for railroad service…
Here is an article that covers the details for those who want to know more…
As an nteresting point, a railroad watch may be MORE ‘accurate’ than a marine chronometer – albeit not as precise. This is not nit-picking.
Interestingly enough, as you know from using a marine chronometer, it isn’t inherently ‘accurate’ – you can’t and don’t rely on looking at the hands to find out what time it is. You look at the hands, calculate the appropriate deviation factor, and apply it to find out what time it is – a procedure that would rightly have any railroad operating authority in horror if they’d stop laughing at anyone who suggested it! The important thing for any marine chronometer is that it run at a consistent rate, not that it run at the exact rate corresponding to ‘clock time’. (I have mentioned that this is actually LESS exact than a stopped railroad watch, which at least will show the precise time of day twice daily… ;-}
The really good late railroad watches can be accurate to within seconds a YEAR, (This in some cases requires special care of the watch when it isn’t in normal position on your wr
I see your point about the accuracy of a marine chronometer. As I understand the matter, its primary purpose was to aid in determining the longitude of a location–take a sight of the sun at its zenith, and see how much the local sun time differs from Greenwich time. Until a reliable chronometer was developed, longitude could not be determined accurately until quite some time after tables showing the north/south location of the sun and moon had been developed to be used in determining latitude.
As I understand the matter, when the noon sighting had been taken, the time on board the ship would be set to noon.
This is entirely an aside, but an uncle of mine was a missionary in Japan when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. He and his wife, along with other enemy aliens, were interned until some time in 1942 when arrangements were made for them and Japanese internees to be exchanged. Those in Japan boarded a Japanese ship which met a Swedish (neutral) ship somewhere (probably in Japanese-controlled waters). I do not know where the two ships met, but all on board the Japanese ship observed Tokyo time, no matter how far the ship was from Japan. The term had not been invented at the time, but think of the jet lag both groups of internees suffered when they changed ships!
I honestly do not know how often this is done. All my experience is that the deviation is continued indefinitely, and the ‘hands’ are not reset or tinkered with while at sea. (But that isn’t exactly very great experience, if you take my meaning!}
I am sure this is because the Japanese had their own ‘proprietary’ version of GMT, perhaps with the prime meridian assigned to Tokyo, or wherever, instead of Birmingham, for the actual calculations. (Ths would be a ‘national pride’ sort of thing, especially appropriate for the Japanese wartime ‘cabal’ in government.) Their maps, etc. would need to be slightly redrawn if this was so, but only with respect to the ‘lines’ of longitude.
Depends on what you mean by “the time”. The ship has clocks for everyone to look at; they’re reset to stay halfway near local time. The chronometer that gives time for celestial navigation stays on Greenwich time.
No idea when they reset clocks, but they wouldn’t use a noon sight to reset them. No way to use a sextant near noon to determine time accurately.
BTW Railroad Standard Time created time zones, so every station within one time zone set their clocks to the same time, rather then setting them by the sun (causing different times as you travelled east or west). It had nothing to do with Daylight Savings Time.
According the story they taught us in school, Daylight Savings Time was first proposed by Ben Franklin, who thought it odd that during certain times of year Philadelphia shops would sit closed in the mornings until several hours after the sunrise, but would close in late afternoon or evening in the dark. By adjusting the clocks by an hour, the shops could both open and close during daylight hours - a good thing in the years before electric lighting.
What a shame that people were incapable of adjusting their hours of operation unless someone changed the time indicated on the village clock. After the clock is adjusted the merchants are now opening an hour earlier just as they would be if they just said “In the summer we open an hour earlier”.
Just as the railroads needed a standard time so opposing trains could be co-ordinated, so in our now very international society, we should run the entire world on standard time. GPS & flight planning, among others, already do.
| Daylight Saving Time observance? | Count | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Countries and territories which do not observe DST at all | 159 | China |
| Countries and territories where at least one location observe DST | 79 | United States |
| –Countries and territories where all locations observe DST some part of the year | 68 | Germany |
| –Countries and territories where many, but not all locations observe DST part of the year | 10 | United States |
| –Countries and territories where at least one location observe DST all year | 2 | Macquarie Island |
| –Countries and territories where all locations observe DST all year | 1 | Falkland Islands |
Ah, yes, there could well be great confusion and many missed trains (as though no one misses a train now) before the inauguration of standard time zones. Seldom were the time standards mentioned in the railroads’ representations in the guides of the era. Looking in the Travelers Official Railway Guide of the United States and Canada for June, 1869, I find a rare note in the representation of the Wilmington and Manchester Railway (Wilmington, N.C., to Kingsville, S.C., and Kingsville to Camden)–“Camden Branch Trains…run by Camden time, which is 15 minutes slower than Wilmington and Manchester Railway time.”
I do not know how many of you remember the hodge-podge of starting and ending times for the so-called “Daylight Saving Time” before Congress, in its infinite wisdom, decreed that everybody is to observe the same dates, unless a state legislature exempted its state; Congress did make an exception for the area of Indiana close to Chicago. The details of this hodge-podge were published in the Guide.
Most of the South did not make the change, but the people in Virginia living near (and especially those working there) in Bedlam-on-the-Potomac had to make the change.
I like Phoebe Vet’s comment about the people who were incapable of adjusting their time.
Incidentally, during the Second World War, the people in England had to endure Double War Time. At least, we in the South were forced to observe only single War Time.
Are many of you familiar with Rob
I should have prefaced “Most of the South…” with “Until Congress enacted its decree,”