Railroad chronometer
Encyclopedia
Railroad chronometer
Chronometer
Chronometer may refer to:* Chronometer watch, a watch tested and certified to meet certain precision standards* Hydrochronometer, a water clock* Marine chronometer, a timekeeper used for celestial navigation...

s
, or Railroad Standard Watches, are specialized timepieces that once were crucial for safe and correct operation of train
Train
A train is a connected series of vehicles for rail transport that move along a track to transport cargo or passengers from one place to another place. The track usually consists of two rails, but might also be a monorail or maglev guideway.Propulsion for the train is provided by a separate...

s in many countries. A system called Timetable and Train Order, which relied on highly accurate timekeeping, was used to ensure that two trains could not be on the same stretch of track at the same time.

Regulations of the watches used by critical personnel on the railroads (engineer, conductor, switch yard controllers, etc.) were specified almost from the beginning of widespread railroad use in the 1850s and 1860s. These regulations became more widespread and more specific as time went on, with some watches that were "railroad standard" in one time period falling away to no longer being qualified in others. There was no absolute, universal definition used across different railroad lines; each company appointed one or more "time inspectors" (typically a watchmaker
Watchmaker
A watchmaker is an artisan who makes and repairs watches. Since virtually all watches are now factory made, most modern watchmakers solely repair watches. However, originally they were master craftsmen who built watches, including all their parts, by hand...

) who decided which watches they would work on and accepted as usable. In the United States, the American Railway Association held a meeting in 1887, which resulted a fairly standardized set of requirements, but not all railroads adopted them.

One notable watch inspector was Webb C. Ball
Webb C. Ball
Webster Clay Ball was a jeweler and watchmaker born in Fredericktown, Ohio. After a two-year apprenticeship to a jeweler, Ball settled in Cleveland, Ohio to join a jewelry store...

. His first job as a time inspector was when he was brought in by the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railways in 1891 after a crash and was tasked with bringing their time inspection standards up to industry normals. Ball's career eventually led to him being the time inspector on more than half the United States' railways, leading to a far more uniform set of standards in the U.S.

A typical railroad's requirements for a watch in the early 1900s might include:
  • only American-made watches may be used (depending on availability of spare parts)
  • only open-faced dials, with the stem at 12 o'clock
  • minimum of 17 functional jewels in the movement
  • 16 or 18-size only
  • maximum variation of 30 seconds (approximately 4 seconds daily) per weekly check
  • watch adjusted to at least five positions: Face up and face down (the positions a watch might commonly take when laid on a flat surface); then crown up, crown pointing left, and crown pointing right (the positions a watch might commonly take in a pocket). Occasionally a sixth position, crown pointing down, would be included.
  • adjusted for severe temperature variance and isochronism (variance in spring tension)
  • indication of time with bold legible Arabic numerals, outer minute division, second dial, heavy hands,
  • lever used to set the time (no risk of having the stem left out, thus inadvertently setting the watch to an erroneous time)
  • Breguet
    Breguet (watch)
    Breguet is a manufacturer of luxury watches, founded by Abraham-Louis Breguet in Paris in 1775. Currently part of The Swatch Group, its timepieces are now produced in the Vallée de Joux in Switzerland...

     balance spring
  • micrometer
    Micrometer
    A micrometer , sometimes known as a micrometer screw gauge, is a device incorporating a calibrated screw used widely for precise measurement of small distances in mechanical engineering and machining as well as most mechanical trades, along with other metrological instruments such as dial, vernier,...

     adjustment regulator
  • double roller
  • steel escape wheel
  • anti-magnetic protection (after the advent of diesel locomotives)


The Waltham Watch Company
Waltham Watch Company
The Waltham Watch Company, also known as the American Waltham Watch Co. and the American Watch Co., produced about 40 million high quality watches, clocks, speedometers, compasses, time fuses and other precision instruments between 1850 and 1957...

 and the Elgin Watch Company
Elgin Watch Company
The Elgin National Watch Company, most commonly known as just the Elgin Watch company was a major US watch company.-History:The Elgin National Watch Company, was founded in August 1864 as the National Watch Company. A number of former associates of the Waltham Watch Company and Chicago watchmaker J.C...

 were both used as early as the 1860s and 1870s as railroad standard watches. Later, Hamilton Watch Company
Hamilton Watch Company
The Hamilton Watch Company was originally formed to produce high quality pocket watches and wristwatches mid-range and luxury. Hamilton would become a corporate conglomerate diversified in other operations...

, Illinois Watch Company
Illinois watch company
The Illinois Watch Company was founded on December 23, 1870, in Springfield, Illinois by John C. Adams, John Whitfield Bunn and various additional financiers. Twenty years later, Jacob Bunn, Jr. took over and ran the company until his death in 1926...

 and many of the other American watch manufacturers all produced railroad-grade watches.

The Time Signal
Time signal
A time signal is a visible, audible, mechanical, or electronic signal used as a reference to determine the time of day.-Audible and visible time signals:...

 Service of the United States Naval Observatory
United States Naval Observatory
The United States Naval Observatory is one of the oldest scientific agencies in the United States, with a primary mission to produce Positioning, Navigation, and Timing for the U.S. Navy and the U.S. Department of Defense...

 was used to ensure accuracy of railroad chronometers and schedule American rail transport.

The minimum requirements were raised several times as watch-making technology progressed, and the watch companies produced newer, even more reliable models. By WWII, many railroads required watches that were of a much higher grade (as many as 23 jewels, for example) than those made to comply with the original 1891 standard.

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