Railroad chronometers: Meaning (information, definition, explanation, facts)

Railroad chronometers (railroader's watches) were critical to the safe and correct operation of trains in the United States. A system called Timetable and Train Order was used to ensure trains could not collide; this ensured two trains could not be on the same stretch of track at the same time, but it required accurate timekeeping.

Upon a notorious train accident, which happened in 1891 on the East Coast of U.S.A., provoked by the misfunction of a railway agent's watch, the North American Railroad industry charged their General Time Inspector Webb C. Ball responsible over 125,000 miles of tracks in U.S.A., Canada & North Mexico, previously a jeweller, to write standards for all the watches used by their personal:

• Only American made watches may be used (availability of spare parts),
• Only Open-faced dials, with the stem at 12 o’clock,
• A minimum of 17 functional jewels in the movement,16- or 18-size only,
• A maximum variation of 30 seconds (approximately 4 seconds daily) per weekly check,
• Watch adjusted to five positions,
• 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 balance spring,
• Micrometer adjustment regulator,
• Double Roller,
• Steel escape wheel,
• Antimagnetic protection.

The Waltham Watch Company could immediately comply with the requirements of Ball's guidelines, soon followed by followed by Elgin Watch Company & most of the other American manufactures, applying the American System of Watch Manufacturing: high precision was available at an affordable cost, e.g. Waltham became the official timekeeper of railroads in 52 different countries.

W.C. Ball's prescription are still at the base of today's officially certified Chronometers standards, as laid out by the "Société Suisse de Chronométrie", which was founded in 1924.

External link:

• http://www.ssc.ch/
• http://home.mindspring.com/~railroadstories/sciam19110617/watch.htm