The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1897-07-10
STANDARD TIME.
Why the System Now Prevailing In
This Country Was Adopted.
Philadelphia Record.

Philadelphia Record
The old railroad man sat behind the coun-
ter of Cbestnut-street ticket office, enjoy
ing a mild and meditative cigar. A young
man with an Interrogation point sort of a
face leaned over the counter and said Beg
pardon may / ask a question? Thanks. /
observe that all railway time tables have
conspicuously printed upon them Eastern
standard time L suppose I'm an awful
ignoramuS, but I'm blest If I ever met any
one who could clearly explain the meaning
Of that Do you know?'
II rather think l do" replied the old rail-
road man. Prior to 1888 the clocks of this
country were in confusion indeScribable.
Every city, town and village had it's own
local time. fixed by solar observation. Then
every railroad had its own standard of
time. and some of the large systems had
several different varieties of time, cover
ing their several divisions respectively In
those days if you went into strange town
and asked one of its people the time OF day,
he would reply with the question, City
time or railroad timer the variation be-
tween the two being in some cases nearly
an hour. A man travelling only from Bos-
ton to washington desirous of keeping his
watch even with the time table would use
no less than five different standards of
time. He would start by Boston time, at
Providence he would reset his watch to
Providence time, at New London to New
York time at New York-not as one might
suppose to the local time of the metropolis
but to Philadelphia time, which was then
just five, minutes slower than New YORK
time. All the way from New York to Bal
timore his train would be governed by our
own old statehouse clock. but at Baltimore
he would have to set his watch back two
minutes, as the train there took Washing
ton time Were he to stop off at Trenton
or Wilmington or some other intermediate
point, the situation would be further COM
plicated for he would encounter local time
as soon as he had left the depot.
Now" continued the old railroad man.
relighting his cigar the enormous dangers
and Inconvenience of this system, or lack
of system early became manifest and
schemes for it's betterment were under dis
rfArrt-1x hn id o11
luton of the difficulty lay in the establish
ment Of geographical zones or belts, defined
by arbitrary lines running north and south
the time of some one designated point
within each zone to prevail all over the ter
ritory within it's boundary lines. Thus
much agreed upon, the real trouble began
The smallest crossroads hamlet, as well as
the largest city, was willing that every
other community in its particular zone
should give up it's local time but strenu-
ollsly protested against changing its own
After protracted discussion the several ma
tional organizations of railway ofhclals re-
solved to disregard all local clamor1ngs and
agreed upon the system or time STANDARDS
This, briefly stated, consists of dividing
the country into belts of fifteen degrees OF
longitude each. and taking the actual solar
time of some important place within each
belt as the standard time OF all other
places in that belt. AS fifteen degrees OF
time. it follows that the time of any given
belt is one hour earlie~ than that of the
belt west ana one hOur later thdl tudt VI
the belt east of it. Eastern standard time
is that of places directly upon the seventy
fifth meridian west of Greenwich, and is
consequently just five hours later than
Greenwich time Roughly speaking, East
ern standard time prevails 3, from Portland
on the east to Buffalo and Pittsburg on the
west, and when it is 3 o'clock p. m. at
Greenwich, England, it is precisely Y
o'clock noon all over the area thus dehned'
regardless of the true or solar system.
Central standard time is fixed by the
ninetieth meridian. If you start from Phil
adelphia and travel west of Pittsburg you
must set you watch back just one hour on
leaving the smoky city. At Yankton, n;
D. YOU strike mountain standard. time. and
your watch goes back another hour. If you
go on to the Pacific coast you will set 1t
back a third hour, for you VIII then be IN
the zone of Pacific standard time, fixed by
the one hundred and twentieth meridian
west of Greenwich. To sum 1t up, instead
of a thousand standards of time, as former
". your watch will show the exact and
universal time at every point In America
by resetting the hands three times between
the Atlantic and Pacitlc.