NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
From: Brad Morris
Date: 2014 Mar 1, 22:44 -0500
Norm
The synchronization of locomotives and time was a critical item.
Before synchronization, many fatalities occurred based upon multiple locomotives trying to occupy the same physical space, at what they thought was different times, but was actually the same time.
So the conductor's time is actually an important item. Nothing to do with the local church bells or meridian passage of the sun. Its how they ran the railroads.
I'm not sure how they distributed time throughout the system, but telegraph does seem like a likely candidate. I hope someone does know how! ('Cause it ain't me)
Brad
How interesting. Of course, this begs the question, but what about Church Bells? Big Ben? Maybe it was more important to be locally in sync with your townspeople than to be absolutely correct.
Norm
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