Railway time
Encyclopedia
Railway time was the name given to the standardised time arrangement first applied by the Great Western Railway
in England in November 1840. This was the first recorded occasion when a number of different local times
were synchronised and a single standard time
applied. Railway time was progressively taken up by all of the other railway companies in Great Britain over the following two to three years. The times schedules by which trains were organised and the times train stations clocks displayed was brought in line with the local time for London or "London Time". This was also the time set at Greenwich
by the Royal Observatory
, which was already widely known as Greenwich Mean Time
(GMT).
The development of railway networks in North America in the 1850s, India in around 1860, and as well as other countries in Europe, also prompted the introduction of standard time systems influenced by the specific, geographical, industrial development and political governance appertaining.
The key purpose behind introducing railway time was twofold: to overcome the confusion caused by having non-uniform local times in each town and station stop along the expanding railway network and to reduce the incidence of accidents and near misses, which were becoming more frequent as the number of train journeys increased.
The railway companies sometimes faced concerted resistance from groups of local people in a number of places where trains stopped, who refused to agree to adjust their public clocks to bring them into line with London Time. As a consequence two different times would be displayed in the town and in use with the station clocks and published in train timetables differing by several minutes from that on other clocks. Despite this early reluctance, railway time rapidly became adopted as the default time across the whole of Great Britain, although it took until 1880 for the government to legislate on the establishment of a single Standard Time and a single time zone
for the country.
Some contemporary commentators referred to the influence of railway time on encouraging greater precision in daily tasks and the demand for punctuality.
. Solar time
is calculated with reference to the relative position of the sun. This only provided an approximation as to time due to variations in orbits and had become unsuitable for day-to-day purposes. It was replaced by local mean time which eliminated the variation due to seasonal differences and anomalies. It also took account of the specific longitude
at any location and enabled a precise time correction to be applied.
Such new-found precision did not overcome a different problem which was the small differences between the local time of two neighbouring towns and the longer distances between major towns and cities. In Britain, local times, set by reference to the position of the sun, would have differed by up to 20 minutes from that of time in Greenwich, London. For example, Oxford
Time was 5 minutes behind Greenwich Time, Leeds
Time 6 minutes behind, Carnforth
, 11 minutes behind, and Barrow
almost 13 minutes behind. In India and North America these differences could be sixty minutes or more. Almanacs containing tables were published and instructions attached to sundials to enable the differences between local time to be computed.
Before the arrival of the railway, journeys between these centres and the larger towns en route would take many hours or days, and as such these differences could routinely be dealt with by adjusting the hands of the watch periodically. In Britain, the coaching companies published schedules providing details of the corrections required. However, this variation in local times, not just between the east and west coasts, but between other towns and cities and London was large enough to present problems for the railway companies organising train schedules. For instance, Leeds
time was six minutes behind London, whilst Bristol
was ten minutes behind. In contrast, sunrise for towns to the east such as Norwich
occurred several minutes ahead of London. It soon became apparent that even such small discrepancies in times caused confusion, disruption, or even accidents.
and Charles Wheatstone
and was installed on a short section of the Great Western Railway in 1839. By 1852 a telegraph link had been constructed between a new electro-magnetic clock at Greenwich and initially Lewisham
, and shortly after this, London Bridge
stations. It also connected via the Central Telegraph Station of the Electric Time Company in the City of London which enabled the transmission of a time signal along the railway telegraphic network to other stations. By 1855 time signals from Greenwich could be sent through wires alongside the railway lines across the length and breadth of Britain. This technology was also used in India to sychronise railway time.
Before the advent of the telegraph, stationmasters adjusted their clocks using tables supplied by the railway company to convert local time to London Time. In turn, train guards would set their chronometers against those clocks.
The introduction of railway time was in the end swift despite not being straightforward. The Great Western Railway Company was the first to standardise its timetable to that of Greenwich Mean Time in November 1840. One of the most vociferous proponents of standardising time on the railways was Henry Booth
, Secretary of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway
who had by January 1846 ordered the adjustment of clocks to Greenwich Mean Time at both Liverpool
and Manchester
stations.
On 22 September 1847, the Railway Clearing House
, set up five years earlier to coordinate the distribution of passenger fares and charges for the transport of goods between the individual railway companies, decreed that "GMT be adopted at all stations as soon as the General Post Office permitted it". From 1 December 1847, the London and North Western
and the Caledonian
Railways had also switched over. By January 1848, according to Bradshaws Railway Guide
, the other railway companies that had adopted London Time also included, the London and South Western
, the Midland
, the Chester and Birkenhead
, the Lancaster and Carlisle
, the East Lancashire and the York and North Midland
.
It was reported that by 1855, 95 percent of towns and cities had transferred to GMT. On the other hand not all railway companies convinced the local dignitaries to bring their clocks on public buildings in line without stern resistance. Although by 1844 the Bristol and Exeter Railway
was also running to London Time, the public clocks at both Exeter
and Bristol still operated to local time but showed London Time via the addition of a second minute hand, which ran 14 and 10 minutes ahead, respectively of its companion. In Exeter this situation arose due to the reluctance of the Dean of Exeter Cathedral to concede to the demands of the railway company, the cathedral clock being the principal timekeeper for the city. Similarly, although the clock at the The Bristol Exchange
was installed in 1822 subsequently it had a second minute hand added. Bristol did not solely recognise railway time until September 1852. It was not for a further eight years and the arrival of the electric telegraph that railway time was the sole time recognised in these towns as well as some others in the West Country
including Bath, Devonport
and Plymouth
. Another town that stood its ground was Oxford
where the great clock on Tom Tower
at Christ Church, Oxford
, was fitted with two minute hands, one for local time and one for GMT.
It was not until 2 August 1880, when the Statutes (Definition of Time) Act received the Royal Assent, that a unified standard time for the whole of Great Britain finally achieved legal status.
However, unlike in Britain, where railway time was rapidly adopted countrywide and evolved not long after into standard time, in India the much larger size of the country and the autonomy enjoyed by Bombay and Calcutta resulted in both Presidencies' continuing to retain and largely operate their own respective local times in one form or other well into the 20th century. Meanwhile for the remaining part of the 19th century Madras time continued to be used solely by all railways
Proposals had been put forward for at least one meridian–based time zone for India as early as 1884. However, no consensus could be reached until 1906, when a single time zone based on Allahabad
was established, and a standard time was introduced which the railways came in line with. Despite this, Culcutta still kept its own time until 1945 and to a lesser extent Bombay continued to unofficially use its time until 1955.
in August 1853. Two trains on the same track and heading towards each other collided as each of the train guards had different times set on their watches, resulting in the death of 14 passengers. Railway schedules were co-ordinated in New England shortly after this incident Numerous other collisions led to the setting up of the General Time Convention, a committee of railway companies to agree on train scheduling.
In 1870 Charles F. Dowd
, who was unconnected with the railway movement or civil authorities, proposed A System of National Times for Railroads which involved a single time for railways but the keeping of local times for towns. Although this did not find favour with railway managers, in 1881 they eventually agreed for the idea to be investigated by William Frederick Allen Secretary of the General Time Convention and Managing Editor of the Travellers' Official Guide to the Railways. He proposed a modified solution by replacing the 50 different railway times by five time zones. He eventually persuaded the railway managers and the politicians running the cities that had several railway termini, that it was in their interests to speedily adopt his simpler proposals which aligned the zones with cities railroad stations. In doing so they would pre-empt the imposition of more costly and cumbersome arrangements by different state legislators and the naval authorities both of whom favoured retention of local times.
Right to the end there was opposition expressed by many smaller towns and cities, to the imposition of railway time. For example, in Indianapolis
the report in the daily Sentinel for 17 November 1883 protested that people would have to "eat sleep work ... and marry by railroad time". However, with the support of nearly all railway companies, most cities and influential observatories such as Yale
and Harvard this collaborative approach led to standard railway time being introduced at noon on 18 November 1883. This consensus held and was only incorporated into federal law in 1918.
was only newly unified as a single country when on 12 December 1866 and at the start of the winter season the railway timetables centred on Turin
, Verona
, Florence
, Rome
, Naples
and Palermo
were synchronised on the time in Rome, which although it would remain notionally at least under French
military control until 1870, was still seen as being at the heart of the Italian nation.
In addition to the adoption of a single railway time there was a progressive standardisation of time for civil and commercial purposes. Milan
came in line straight away, Turin and Bologna
on 1 January 1867, Venice
on 1 May 1880 and Cagliari
in 1886.
such as Belfast
and Bangor
where the clocks were set not to Dublin mean time but to Belfast Time, which was adjusted by 36 minutes 21 seconds.
follow Moscow Time.
was introduced all over Sweden, one hour more than Greenwich time.
Great Western Railway
The Great Western Railway was a British railway company that linked London with the south-west and west of England and most of Wales. It was founded in 1833, received its enabling Act of Parliament in 1835 and ran its first trains in 1838...
in England in November 1840. This was the first recorded occasion when a number of different local times
Local mean time
Local mean time is a form of solar time that corrects the variations of local apparent time, forming a uniform time scale at a specific longitude...
were synchronised and a single standard time
Standard time
Standard time is the result of synchronizing clocks in different geographical locations within a time zone to the same time rather than using the local meridian as in local mean time or solar time. Historically, this helped in the process of weather forecasting and train travel. The concept...
applied. Railway time was progressively taken up by all of the other railway companies in Great Britain over the following two to three years. The times schedules by which trains were organised and the times train stations clocks displayed was brought in line with the local time for London or "London Time". This was also the time set at Greenwich
Greenwich
Greenwich is a district of south London, England, located in the London Borough of Greenwich.Greenwich is best known for its maritime history and for giving its name to the Greenwich Meridian and Greenwich Mean Time...
by the Royal Observatory
Royal Observatory, Greenwich
The Royal Observatory, Greenwich , in London, England played a major role in the history of astronomy and navigation, and is best known as the location of the prime meridian...
, which was already widely known as Greenwich Mean Time
Greenwich Mean Time
Greenwich Mean Time is a term originally referring to mean solar time at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, London. It is arguably the same as Coordinated Universal Time and when this is viewed as a time zone the name Greenwich Mean Time is especially used by bodies connected with the United...
(GMT).
The development of railway networks in North America in the 1850s, India in around 1860, and as well as other countries in Europe, also prompted the introduction of standard time systems influenced by the specific, geographical, industrial development and political governance appertaining.
The key purpose behind introducing railway time was twofold: to overcome the confusion caused by having non-uniform local times in each town and station stop along the expanding railway network and to reduce the incidence of accidents and near misses, which were becoming more frequent as the number of train journeys increased.
The railway companies sometimes faced concerted resistance from groups of local people in a number of places where trains stopped, who refused to agree to adjust their public clocks to bring them into line with London Time. As a consequence two different times would be displayed in the town and in use with the station clocks and published in train timetables differing by several minutes from that on other clocks. Despite this early reluctance, railway time rapidly became adopted as the default time across the whole of Great Britain, although it took until 1880 for the government to legislate on the establishment of a single Standard Time and a single time zone
Time zone
A time zone is a region on Earth that has a uniform standard time for legal, commercial, and social purposes. In order for the same clock time to always correspond to the same portion of the day as the Earth rotates , different places on the Earth need to have different clock times...
for the country.
Some contemporary commentators referred to the influence of railway time on encouraging greater precision in daily tasks and the demand for punctuality.
Historical background
Until the latter part of the 18th century, time was normally determined in each town by reference to a local sundialSundial
A sundial is a device that measures time by the position of the Sun. In common designs such as the horizontal sundial, the sun casts a shadow from its style onto a surface marked with lines indicating the hours of the day. The style is the time-telling edge of the gnomon, often a thin rod or a...
. Solar time
Solar time
Solar time is a reckoning of the passage of time based on the Sun's position in the sky. The fundamental unit of solar time is the day. Two types of solar time are apparent solar time and mean solar time .-Introduction:...
is calculated with reference to the relative position of the sun. This only provided an approximation as to time due to variations in orbits and had become unsuitable for day-to-day purposes. It was replaced by local mean time which eliminated the variation due to seasonal differences and anomalies. It also took account of the specific longitude
Longitude
Longitude is a geographic coordinate that specifies the east-west position of a point on the Earth's surface. It is an angular measurement, usually expressed in degrees, minutes and seconds, and denoted by the Greek letter lambda ....
at any location and enabled a precise time correction to be applied.
Such new-found precision did not overcome a different problem which was the small differences between the local time of two neighbouring towns and the longer distances between major towns and cities. In Britain, local times, set by reference to the position of the sun, would have differed by up to 20 minutes from that of time in Greenwich, London. For example, Oxford
Oxford
The city of Oxford is the county town of Oxfordshire, England. The city, made prominent by its medieval university, has a population of just under 165,000, with 153,900 living within the district boundary. It lies about 50 miles north-west of London. The rivers Cherwell and Thames run through...
Time was 5 minutes behind Greenwich Time, Leeds
Leeds
Leeds is a city and metropolitan borough in West Yorkshire, England. In 2001 Leeds' main urban subdivision had a population of 443,247, while the entire city has a population of 798,800 , making it the 30th-most populous city in the European Union.Leeds is the cultural, financial and commercial...
Time 6 minutes behind, Carnforth
Carnforth
- References :...
, 11 minutes behind, and Barrow
Barrow
Barrow most often refers to:* a cart or flat rectangular tray with handles at each end** wheelbarrow-Other:* a tumulus, a large mound of earth or stone placed over a burial site* a castrated male domestic pig...
almost 13 minutes behind. In India and North America these differences could be sixty minutes or more. Almanacs containing tables were published and instructions attached to sundials to enable the differences between local time to be computed.
Before the arrival of the railway, journeys between these centres and the larger towns en route would take many hours or days, and as such these differences could routinely be dealt with by adjusting the hands of the watch periodically. In Britain, the coaching companies published schedules providing details of the corrections required. However, this variation in local times, not just between the east and west coasts, but between other towns and cities and London was large enough to present problems for the railway companies organising train schedules. For instance, Leeds
Leeds
Leeds is a city and metropolitan borough in West Yorkshire, England. In 2001 Leeds' main urban subdivision had a population of 443,247, while the entire city has a population of 798,800 , making it the 30th-most populous city in the European Union.Leeds is the cultural, financial and commercial...
time was six minutes behind London, whilst Bristol
Bristol
Bristol is a city, unitary authority area and ceremonial county in South West England, with an estimated population of 433,100 for the unitary authority in 2009, and a surrounding Larger Urban Zone with an estimated 1,070,000 residents in 2007...
was ten minutes behind. In contrast, sunrise for towns to the east such as Norwich
Norwich
Norwich is a city in England. It is the regional administrative centre and county town of Norfolk. During the 11th century, Norwich was the largest city in England after London, and one of the most important places in the kingdom...
occurred several minutes ahead of London. It soon became apparent that even such small discrepancies in times caused confusion, disruption, or even accidents.
Influence of the electric telegraph
The electric telegraph, which had been developed in the early part of the 19th century, was further refined by William Fothergill CookeWilliam Fothergill Cooke
Sir William Fothergill Cooke was, with Charles Wheatstone, the co-inventor of the Cooke-Wheatstone electrical telegraph, which was patented in May 1837...
and Charles Wheatstone
Charles Wheatstone
Sir Charles Wheatstone FRS , was an English scientist and inventor of many scientific breakthroughs of the Victorian era, including the English concertina, the stereoscope , and the Playfair cipher...
and was installed on a short section of the Great Western Railway in 1839. By 1852 a telegraph link had been constructed between a new electro-magnetic clock at Greenwich and initially Lewisham
Lewisham
Lewisham is a district in South London, England, located in the London Borough of Lewisham. It is situated south-east of Charing Cross. The area is identified in the London Plan as one of 35 major centres in Greater London.-History:...
, and shortly after this, London Bridge
London Bridge
London Bridge is a bridge over the River Thames, connecting the City of London and Southwark, in central London. Situated between Cannon Street Railway Bridge and Tower Bridge, it forms the western end of the Pool of London...
stations. It also connected via the Central Telegraph Station of the Electric Time Company in the City of London which enabled the transmission of a time signal along the railway telegraphic network to other stations. By 1855 time signals from Greenwich could be sent through wires alongside the railway lines across the length and breadth of Britain. This technology was also used in India to sychronise railway time.
Great Britain
The introduction of railway time was in the end swift despite not being straightforward. The Great Western Railway Company was the first to standardise its timetable to that of Greenwich Mean Time in November 1840. One of the most vociferous proponents of standardising time on the railways was Henry Booth
Henry Booth
Henry Booth was born in Rodney Street, Liverpool, England. A descendant of the Booths of Twemlow, he was a corn merchant, businessman and engineer....
, Secretary of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway
Liverpool and Manchester Railway
The Liverpool and Manchester Railway was the world's first inter-city passenger railway in which all the trains were timetabled and were hauled for most of the distance solely by steam locomotives. The line opened on 15 September 1830 and ran between the cities of Liverpool and Manchester in North...
who had by January 1846 ordered the adjustment of clocks to Greenwich Mean Time at both Liverpool
Liverpool
Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough of Merseyside, England, along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary. It was founded as a borough in 1207 and was granted city status in 1880...
and Manchester
Manchester
Manchester is a city and metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. According to the Office for National Statistics, the 2010 mid-year population estimate for Manchester was 498,800. Manchester lies within one of the UK's largest metropolitan areas, the metropolitan county of Greater...
stations.
On 22 September 1847, the Railway Clearing House
Railway Clearing House
The British Railway Clearing House was an organisation set up to manage the allocation of revenue collected by numerous pre-grouping railway companies...
, set up five years earlier to coordinate the distribution of passenger fares and charges for the transport of goods between the individual railway companies, decreed that "GMT be adopted at all stations as soon as the General Post Office permitted it". From 1 December 1847, the London and North Western
London and North Western Railway
The London and North Western Railway was a British railway company between 1846 and 1922. It was created by the merger of three companies – the Grand Junction Railway, the London and Birmingham Railway and the Manchester and Birmingham Railway...
and the Caledonian
Caledonian Railway
The Caledonian Railway was a major Scottish railway company. It was formed in the early 19th century and it was absorbed almost a century later into the London, Midland and Scottish Railway, in the 1923 railway grouping, by means of the Railways Act 1921...
Railways had also switched over. By January 1848, according to Bradshaws Railway Guide
George Bradshaw
George Bradshaw was an English cartographer, printer and publisher. He is best known for developing the most successful and longest published series of combined railway timetables.-Biography:...
, the other railway companies that had adopted London Time also included, the London and South Western
London and South Western Railway
The London and South Western Railway was a railway company in England from 1838 to 1922. Its network extended from London to Plymouth via Salisbury and Exeter, with branches to Ilfracombe and Padstow and via Southampton to Bournemouth and Weymouth. It also had many routes connecting towns in...
, the Midland
Midland Railway
The Midland Railway was a railway company in the United Kingdom from 1844 to 1922, when it became part of the London, Midland and Scottish Railway....
, the Chester and Birkenhead
Chester and Birkenhead Railway
The Chester and Birkenhead Railway ran from Birkenhead to Chester. It opened on 23 September 1838. On the 22 July 1847 it merged with the Birkenhead, Lancaster and Cheshire Junction Railway to become the Birkenhead Railway.-Currently Working:...
, the Lancaster and Carlisle
Lancaster and Carlisle Railway
The Lancaster and Carlisle Railway was a British railway company authorised on 6 June 1844 to build a line between Lancaster and Carlisle in North-West England...
, the East Lancashire and the York and North Midland
York and North Midland Railway
The York and North Midland Railway was a railway company in the United Kingdom which opened in 1839, connecting York, with the Leeds and Selby Railway and in 1840 with the North Midland Railway at Normanton near Leeds.-Origins:...
.
It was reported that by 1855, 95 percent of towns and cities had transferred to GMT. On the other hand not all railway companies convinced the local dignitaries to bring their clocks on public buildings in line without stern resistance. Although by 1844 the Bristol and Exeter Railway
Bristol and Exeter Railway
The Bristol & Exeter Railway was a railway company formed to connect Bristol and Exeter.The company's head office was situated outside their Bristol station...
was also running to London Time, the public clocks at both Exeter
Exeter
Exeter is a historic city in Devon, England. It lies within the ceremonial county of Devon, of which it is the county town as well as the home of Devon County Council. Currently the administrative area has the status of a non-metropolitan district, and is therefore under the administration of the...
and Bristol still operated to local time but showed London Time via the addition of a second minute hand, which ran 14 and 10 minutes ahead, respectively of its companion. In Exeter this situation arose due to the reluctance of the Dean of Exeter Cathedral to concede to the demands of the railway company, the cathedral clock being the principal timekeeper for the city. Similarly, although the clock at the The Bristol Exchange
The Exchange, Bristol
The Exchange is a Grade I listed building built in 1741–43 by John Wood the Elder, on Corn Street, near the junction with Broad Street in Bristol, England...
was installed in 1822 subsequently it had a second minute hand added. Bristol did not solely recognise railway time until September 1852. It was not for a further eight years and the arrival of the electric telegraph that railway time was the sole time recognised in these towns as well as some others in the West Country
West Country
The West Country is an informal term for the area of south western England roughly corresponding to the modern South West England government region. It is often defined to encompass the historic counties of Cornwall, Devon, Dorset and Somerset and the City of Bristol, while the counties of...
including Bath, Devonport
Devonport, Devon
Devonport, formerly named Plymouth Dock or just Dock, is a district of Plymouth in the English county of Devon, although it was, at one time, the more important settlement. It became a county borough in 1889...
and Plymouth
Plymouth
Plymouth is a city and unitary authority area on the coast of Devon, England, about south-west of London. It is built between the mouths of the rivers Plym to the east and Tamar to the west, where they join Plymouth Sound...
. Another town that stood its ground was Oxford
Oxford
The city of Oxford is the county town of Oxfordshire, England. The city, made prominent by its medieval university, has a population of just under 165,000, with 153,900 living within the district boundary. It lies about 50 miles north-west of London. The rivers Cherwell and Thames run through...
where the great clock on Tom Tower
Tom Tower
Tom Tower is a bell tower in Oxford, England, named for its bell, Great Tom. It is over Tom Gate, on St Aldates, the main entrance of Christ Church, Oxford, which leads into Tom Quad. This square tower with an octagonal lantern and facetted ogee dome was designed by Christopher Wren and built 1681–82...
at Christ Church, Oxford
Christ Church, Oxford
Christ Church or house of Christ, and thus sometimes known as The House), is one of the largest constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England...
, was fitted with two minute hands, one for local time and one for GMT.
It was not until 2 August 1880, when the Statutes (Definition of Time) Act received the Royal Assent, that a unified standard time for the whole of Great Britain finally achieved legal status.
India
The Indian railway companies had similarly to contend with a number of different local times as the rapidly expanding routes extended out from Bombay (today Mumbai), Culcutta (today Kolkata), Lahore and Madras (today Chennai). Towards the end of the 1860s the situation became even more confused as the networks linked up. In 1870 to overcome the problems occurring, Madras time was adopted for all railways, for two reasons: the longitude of Madras is roughly midway between those of Calcutta and Bombay, and the Observatory based there already ran the telegraphic service which could be utilised to synchronise station times via the same time-signal system first used in Britain in 1852 to regulate railway time. Madras Time was popularised further by its use in Newman's Indian Bradshaw Timetables.However, unlike in Britain, where railway time was rapidly adopted countrywide and evolved not long after into standard time, in India the much larger size of the country and the autonomy enjoyed by Bombay and Calcutta resulted in both Presidencies' continuing to retain and largely operate their own respective local times in one form or other well into the 20th century. Meanwhile for the remaining part of the 19th century Madras time continued to be used solely by all railways
Proposals had been put forward for at least one meridian–based time zone for India as early as 1884. However, no consensus could be reached until 1906, when a single time zone based on Allahabad
Allahabad
Allahabad , or Settled by God in Persian, is a major city of India and is one of the main holy cities of Hinduism. It was renamed by the Mughals from the ancient name of Prayaga , and is by some accounts the second-oldest city in India. It is located in the north Indian state of Uttar Pradesh,...
was established, and a standard time was introduced which the railways came in line with. Despite this, Culcutta still kept its own time until 1945 and to a lesser extent Bombay continued to unofficially use its time until 1955.
North America
One of the first reported incidents which brought about a change in how time was organised on railways in the United States occurred in New EnglandNew England
New England is a region in the northeastern corner of the United States consisting of the six states of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut...
in August 1853. Two trains on the same track and heading towards each other collided as each of the train guards had different times set on their watches, resulting in the death of 14 passengers. Railway schedules were co-ordinated in New England shortly after this incident Numerous other collisions led to the setting up of the General Time Convention, a committee of railway companies to agree on train scheduling.
In 1870 Charles F. Dowd
Charles F. Dowd
Charles F. Dowd was a co-principal of the Temple Grove Ladies Seminary in Saratoga Springs, New York. He was the first person to propose multiple time zones for any country, those for the railways of the United States...
, who was unconnected with the railway movement or civil authorities, proposed A System of National Times for Railroads which involved a single time for railways but the keeping of local times for towns. Although this did not find favour with railway managers, in 1881 they eventually agreed for the idea to be investigated by William Frederick Allen Secretary of the General Time Convention and Managing Editor of the Travellers' Official Guide to the Railways. He proposed a modified solution by replacing the 50 different railway times by five time zones. He eventually persuaded the railway managers and the politicians running the cities that had several railway termini, that it was in their interests to speedily adopt his simpler proposals which aligned the zones with cities railroad stations. In doing so they would pre-empt the imposition of more costly and cumbersome arrangements by different state legislators and the naval authorities both of whom favoured retention of local times.
Right to the end there was opposition expressed by many smaller towns and cities, to the imposition of railway time. For example, in Indianapolis
Indianapolis
Indianapolis is the capital of the U.S. state of Indiana, and the county seat of Marion County, Indiana. As of the 2010 United States Census, the city's population is 839,489. It is by far Indiana's largest city and, as of the 2010 U.S...
the report in the daily Sentinel for 17 November 1883 protested that people would have to "eat sleep work ... and marry by railroad time". However, with the support of nearly all railway companies, most cities and influential observatories such as Yale
YALE
RapidMiner, formerly YALE , is an environment for machine learning, data mining, text mining, predictive analytics, and business analytics. It is used for research, education, training, rapid prototyping, application development, and industrial applications...
and Harvard this collaborative approach led to standard railway time being introduced at noon on 18 November 1883. This consensus held and was only incorporated into federal law in 1918.
Germany
In Germany the standardisation of time had started to be discussed in the 1870s. North German railways were already regulated to Berlin Time in 1874. However, it was not until 1 April 1893 that the a law was established by the German Reich "concerning the introduction of uniform time reckoning" by which all railways would operate and also all aspects of social, industrial and civil activity would, henceforth became strictly regulated.Italy
ItalyItaly
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
was only newly unified as a single country when on 12 December 1866 and at the start of the winter season the railway timetables centred on Turin
Turin
Turin is a city and major business and cultural centre in northern Italy, capital of the Piedmont region, located mainly on the left bank of the Po River and surrounded by the Alpine arch. The population of the city proper is 909,193 while the population of the urban area is estimated by Eurostat...
, Verona
Verona
Verona ; German Bern, Dietrichsbern or Welschbern) is a city in the Veneto, northern Italy, with approx. 265,000 inhabitants and one of the seven chef-lieus of the region. It is the second largest city municipality in the region and the third of North-Eastern Italy. The metropolitan area of Verona...
, Florence
Florence
Florence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with approximately 370,000 inhabitants, expanding to over 1.5 million in the metropolitan area....
, Rome
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...
, Naples
Naples
Naples is a city in Southern Italy, situated on the country's west coast by the Gulf of Naples. Lying between two notable volcanic regions, Mount Vesuvius and the Phlegraean Fields, it is the capital of the region of Campania and of the province of Naples...
and Palermo
Palermo
Palermo is a city in Southern Italy, the capital of both the autonomous region of Sicily and the Province of Palermo. The city is noted for its history, culture, architecture and gastronomy, playing an important role throughout much of its existence; it is over 2,700 years old...
were synchronised on the time in Rome, which although it would remain notionally at least under French
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
military control until 1870, was still seen as being at the heart of the Italian nation.
In addition to the adoption of a single railway time there was a progressive standardisation of time for civil and commercial purposes. Milan
Milan
Milan is the second-largest city in Italy and the capital city of the region of Lombardy and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while its urban area, roughly coinciding with its administrative province and the bordering Province of Monza and Brianza ,...
came in line straight away, Turin and Bologna
Bologna
Bologna is the capital city of Emilia-Romagna, in the Po Valley of Northern Italy. The city lies between the Po River and the Apennine Mountains, more specifically, between the Reno River and the Savena River. Bologna is a lively and cosmopolitan Italian college city, with spectacular history,...
on 1 January 1867, Venice
Venice
Venice is a city in northern Italy which is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. It is the capital of the Veneto region...
on 1 May 1880 and Cagliari
Cagliari
Cagliari is the capital of the island of Sardinia, a region of Italy. Cagliari's Sardinian name Casteddu literally means castle. It has about 156,000 inhabitants, or about 480,000 including the outlying townships : Elmas, Assemini, Capoterra, Selargius, Sestu, Monserrato, Quartucciu, Quartu...
in 1886.
France
France adopted Paris Mean Time as its standard national time in 1891. It also required clocks inside railway stations and train schedules to be set five minutes late to allow travelers to arrive late without missing their trains, even while clocks on the external walls of railway stations displayed Paris Mean Time. In 1911, France adopted Paris Mean Time delayed 9 minutes 21 seconds, that is, it adopted Greenwich Mean Time without mentioning the English term "Greenwich". At the same time, slow railway station clocks were eliminated.Ireland
Ireland and France were the only countries that decided not to officially adopt Greenwich Time, reflecting the political sensitivities of the time. Dublin mean time was set 25 minutes ahead of London time, although it did come into line with the international standard time in October 1916 when summer saving time ended. On this date most railway clocks across Ireland were adjusted by 35 minutes rather than one hour. An example of an exception to this adjustment were the railway stations in County DownCounty Down
-Cities:*Belfast *Newry -Large towns:*Dundonald*Newtownards*Bangor-Medium towns:...
such as Belfast
Belfast
Belfast is the capital of and largest city in Northern Ireland. By population, it is the 14th biggest city in the United Kingdom and second biggest on the island of Ireland . It is the seat of the devolved government and legislative Northern Ireland Assembly...
and Bangor
Bangor, County Down
Bangor is a large town in County Down, Northern Ireland. It is a seaside resort on the southern side of Belfast Lough and within the Belfast Metropolitan Area. Bangor Marina is one of the largest in Ireland, and holds Blue Flag status...
where the clocks were set not to Dublin mean time but to Belfast Time, which was adjusted by 36 minutes 21 seconds.
Netherlands
Netherlands Railway time was based on GMT until 1909 when the country adopted 'Amsterdam time' as the standard time for the country, which was 19 minutes ahead of GMT. This persisted until 1940, when the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands required a shift to German time, which has continued to be the standard.Russia
Russia still in 2011 has a separate railway time. All timetables on Russian railwaysRussian Railways
The Russian Railways , is the government owned national rail carrier of the Russian Federation, headquartered in Moscow. The Russian Railways operate over of common carrier routes as well as a few hundred kilometers of industrial routes, making it the second largest network in the world exceeded...
follow Moscow Time.
Sweden
Sweden introduced a railway time after the main national railway between Stockholm and Gothenburg was opened in 1862. The time in Gothenburg, the westernmost end, was used, so passengers following local time would not go to the station too late. There were many private railways that followed local time or their own railway time. In year 1879 a standard timeStandard time
Standard time is the result of synchronizing clocks in different geographical locations within a time zone to the same time rather than using the local meridian as in local mean time or solar time. Historically, this helped in the process of weather forecasting and train travel. The concept...
was introduced all over Sweden, one hour more than Greenwich time.
Railway time and society
The introduction of railway time was not without controversy expressed in other ways by the artists of the day and more recently.- William WordsworthWilliam WordsworthWilliam Wordsworth was a major English Romantic poet who, with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, helped to launch the Romantic Age in English literature with the 1798 joint publication Lyrical Ballads....
in his protest against the building of the Kendal and Windermere RailwayKendal and Windermere RailwayThe Kendal and Windermere Railway is a railway in Cumbria in north-west England. It was built as a railway from the Lancaster and Carlisle Railway at Oxenholme via Kendal to near Windermere, opening fully in April 1847. The engineer was Joseph Locke and the partnership of contractors consisted of...
in 1844 wrote "Is then no nook of English ground secure from rash assault?" He was concerned about the loss of timeless isolation and individuality through the impact on his quiet rural idyll of the hordes from the industrial towns.
- Charles DickensCharles DickensCharles John Huffam Dickens was an English novelist, generally considered the greatest of the Victorian period. Dickens enjoyed a wider popularity and fame than had any previous author during his lifetime, and he remains popular, having been responsible for some of English literature's most iconic...
also expressed concerns several times, such as in Dombey and SonDombey and SonDombey and Son is a novel by the Victorian author Charles Dickens. It was first published in monthly parts between October 1846 and April 1848 with the full title Dealings with the Firm of Dombey and Son: Wholesale, Retail and for Exportation...
where he wrote "There was even railway time observed in clocks, as if the sun itself had given in".
- Thomas HardyThomas HardyThomas Hardy, OM was an English novelist and poet. While his works typically belong to the Naturalism movement, several poems display elements of the previous Romantic and Enlightenment periods of literature, such as his fascination with the supernatural.While he regarded himself primarily as a...
in A Pair of Blue EyesA Pair of Blue EyesA Pair of Blue Eyes is a novel by Thomas Hardy, published in 1873.The book describes the love triangle of a young woman, Elfride Swancourt, and her two suitors from very different backgrounds. Stephen Smith is a socially inferior but ambitious young man who adores her and with whom she shares a...
makes specific reference to railway time and its effect on seemingly contracting human time.
- Alan PlaterAlan PlaterAlan Frederick Plater, CBE, FRSL was an English playwright and screenwriter, who worked extensively in British television from the 1960s to the 2000s.-Career:...
, an English playwrightPlaywrightA playwright, also called a dramatist, is a person who writes plays.The term is not a variant spelling of "playwrite", but something quite distinct: the word wright is an archaic English term for a craftsman or builder...
, wrote the stage play Only A Matter Of Time, in 2002. A Welsh farmer and an envoy for BrunelIsambard Kingdom BrunelIsambard Kingdom Brunel, FRS , was a British civil engineer who built bridges and dockyards including the construction of the first major British railway, the Great Western Railway; a series of steamships, including the first propeller-driven transatlantic steamship; and numerous important bridges...
meet. A discourse takes place on the imminent arrival of the railway connecting the farmer's village to London, why this will require the standardisation of time, and how this will affect the villagers lives.