Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1883-11-29
Railroad and Public Time.

Prof. Leonard Waldo, in North American Re-
view, for December.
In former paper, the part which the
railroads were to play in bringing about
convenient time standards in the United
States was fully pointed out. There ap-
peared recently an official expression of
the opinion of railroad managers, written
by the Secretary of the General and Sonth.
ern Railway Time Conventions, which so
clearly indicated the desirability of intro
ducing hourly standards, that it is now
generally agreed among the railroad people
that the fall and winter Timetables ure
to be made up according to the new stan
dards of time The resolutions do not ad-
vocate any rigid division of standards of
time by astronomical meridians, but very
sensibly keep communities and railroads
which are associated to the same stand
ard. Thus, for instance, the first resolution
implies that Portland, Boston, Providence,
New London, New York. Montreal, Al
bany, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Toronto,
Hamilton, Washington, Richmond, and
Charleston, and the railroads connecting
these points, are to use the Eastern" or
18th meridian time. Central tune, or
the 105th meridian, will be used by the
great system of railroads lying west of
Pittsburgh and Savannah and east of
TOyah on the Texas Pacific, and White
wood on the Northern Pacific. The names
to be given to the various standards are,
for the Goth meridian west of Greenwich,
"Intercolonial;" for the 75tl meridian,
Eastern" for the Goth meridian, Central"
for the 105th meridian, "Mountain;" and
for the 12Oth meridian, Pacific" time
1t will be seen that the only change in
these names from those previously propo-
sed is in calling Atlantic time Eastern"
time and Eastern time "IntercOlonial"
time. Atlantic" corresponds with "Pa-
citic," and there does not seem to De any
very good reason for the change.
So much for the scheme of the railroad
people. When it goes into operation, there
will be little dissenting by the almanac
makers and little more by the people
who would like to see absolutely the same
time from one end of the country to the
other; but all the rest of us will change
our watches and clocks, and forget the
inconvenience and ritation of preceding
years and only know that everybody keeps
the same time that we do. The traveller
from Chicago will know that his watch is
an hour slow when he leaves Pittsburgh
coming east, and the traveller from Que
bee to Charleston that he is an hour fast
when he leaves st Auguseine for Winnie
peg. Fortunately our Eastern time me-
ridian passes between New York and
Philadelphia, and the Central meridian
passes between Chicago and st. Louis.
These are very nearly population centers,
and the very large majority therefore of
the population of the country will have
the true local time practically coincident
with the public time in use. In such a
State as Ohio, however, in.which the local
time will be half an hour fast of the pub
lie time, there will be certain days about
the first of NOvemberi in which the sun
will cross the meridian about quarter
past eleven, Central time, and quarter
before twelve about February Goth. The
extreme effect in November will be to
shorten the business mornings, and to
lengthen the business afternoons, by three
quarters of an hour, or half an hour less
than at present. In Pittsburgh and in
Western New York the effect will be just
the opposite. In England, where the ex-
treme difference of time between the
Greenwich standard time and the local
time in the extreme West is also about
half an hour, the variance is not felt as
business inconvenience. In our country, |
with our brighter skies and our greater |
on daylight, our banks and |
commercial bodies may find it expedient |
to altar their nominal times of doing bu-
siness by half an hour, wherever the |
change of times is most perceptible.
With the general adoption of such uni
form standard time comes the question of |
supply and transmission of time for pub |
lie use. 1t might appear that the U. S.
Naval Observatory should be the chief |
source and center for the distribution of |
time in the United States. This ought |
not, however, to be the case. nor would it |
prove most profitable to the scientific in
terests of the country that it should be
so. The private observatories, by which |
is meant those not supported by the Gen
eral Government, have been for many |
years the teachers of the public on the |
time question. Most of them are tele-
connected with the cities and |
railroads in their vicinity, and are per-
forming the work of furnishing the time
to the satisfaction and convenience of all |
They are living examples to |
the business men around them of the use
fulness of astronomical science in every
day life. They earn from time servicees |
sums of money, small to be sure, but suf- |
ficient in the aggregate to enable them to |
do fair amount of purely scientific work;
and in some cases observatories are kept |