Railroad Memorabilia
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Railroad Memorabilia
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Railroad Grade Pocket WatchesBy the middle of the 19th century, American life and commerce had become increasingly dependent on railroads, and in the years following the Civil War the tracks became congested with train traffic. Trains needed to run on tight timetables so that all could share the available rails, and the need became evident to agree on a standard time. There were no time zones as we know them back then - it was noon when the sun was high, which depends on your longitude. With rail lines spanning the North American continent, there were hundreds of definitions of "noon" spanning many hours, usually relying on the largest or most accurate clock in the area.In 1883, Standard Time was adopted, and the rail industry at last had a broad agreement across the country as to exactly what time it was in any given place. This allowed the trains to run on the same tracks in quick succession, often only minutes apart. The train order system works as long as everyone involved knows what time it is, but in 1891 in Ohio, a train engineer's watch stopped for 4 minutes and then restarted itself unnoticed. As a result of that malfunction, a mail train and an accomodation train collided, killing both engineers and 6 other people. The tragedy was the impetus for the formation of a commission to establish standards for timepieces used in the rail industry, and in 1893 the General Railroad Timepiece Standards were adopted. Though the technical details of the standards that defined a railroad grade pocket watch evolved over the ensuing years, the fundamental object of the specifications was always the same: to make sure everyone operating the trains knew what time it was. To ensure that, the standards specified that a railroad grade pocket watch must contain a minimum number of jewels for bearings, pallets, and pins, must be lever set and have a lever type escapement with a safety wheel to ensure it would restart if stopped, must keep accurate time in several different positions and across a range of temperatures, regardless of how tightly the main spring was wound. Trainmen's pocket watches also had to be easily read in poor lighting, so they required a minimum size watch movement with Arabic numbers, a white dial, and contrasting spade hands. An American pocket watch manufacturing industry blossomed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries in response to this demand, and the mass production of precision pocket watches by companies like Waltham, Elgin, Hamilton, Illinois and others made them affordable to a wider range of people. Consumers learned that pocket watches meeting the railroad standard would keep accurate time to within seconds per day and were reliable and durable, and that fact combined with the sentimental mystique many Americans attach to railroads made railroad grade pocket watches a popular item with the public at large in their day, and their popularity with collectors continues today. Horologists who are interested in these historic timepieces can find different ones for sale here every day, and can learn a bit more by following links at the bottom of our antique railroad grade pocket watches web page.
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