Railway time was the standardised time arrangement first applied by the
Great Western Railway
The Great Western Railway (GWR) was a History of rail transport in Great Britain, British railway company that linked London with the southwest, west and West Midlands (region), West Midlands of England and most of Wales. It was founded in 1833, ...
in England in November 1840, the first recorded occasion when different
local mean time
Local mean time (LMT) is a form of solar time that corrects the variations of local apparent time, forming a uniform time scale at a specific longitude. This measurement of time was used for everyday use during the 19th century before time zones ...
s were synchronised and a single
standard time
Standard time is the synchronization of clocks within a geographical region to a single time standard, rather than a local mean time standard. Generally, standard time agrees with the local mean time at some meridian that passes through the r ...
applied. The key goals behind introducing railway time were to overcome the confusion caused by having non-uniform local times in each town and station stop along the expanding railway network and to reduce the incidence of accidents and near misses, which were becoming more frequent as the number of train journeys increased.
Railway time was progressively taken up by all railway companies in Great Britain over the following seven years. The schedules by which trains were organised and the time
station clocks displayed were brought in line with the local mean time for London or "London Time", the time set at
Greenwich
Greenwich ( , , ) is an List of areas of London, area in south-east London, England, within the Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county of Greater London, east-south-east of Charing Cross.
Greenwich is notable for its maritime hi ...
by the
Royal Observatory, which was already widely known as
Greenwich Mean Time
Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) is the local mean time at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, Royal Observatory in Greenwich, London, counted from midnight. At different times in the past, it has been calculated in different ways, including being ...
(GMT).
The development of railway networks in North America in the 1850s, India in around 1860, and in Europe, prompted the introduction of standard time influenced by geography, industrial development, and political governance.
The railway companies sometimes faced concerted resistance from local people who refused to adjust their public clocks to bring them into line with London Time. As a consequence, two different times would be displayed in the town and in use, with the station clocks and the times published in train timetables differing by several minutes from that on other clocks. Despite this early reluctance, railway time rapidly became adopted as the default time across the whole of Great Britain, although it took until 1880 for the government to legislate on the establishment of a single standard time and a single
time zone
A time zone is an area which observes a uniform standard time for legal, Commerce, commercial and social purposes. Time zones tend to follow the boundaries between Country, countries and their Administrative division, subdivisions instead of ...
for the country.
[Davies, Peter ]
"History of Railway Time"
- ''Reproduced from original article on http://www.carnforth-station.co.uk/ ''- Retrieved March 4, 2008.
Some contemporary commentators referred to the influence of railway time on encouraging greater precision in daily tasks and the demand for punctuality.
History
Until the latter part of the 18th century, time was normally determined in each town by a local
sundial
A sundial is a horology, horological device that tells the time of day (referred to as civil time in modern usage) when direct sunlight shines by the position of the Sun, apparent position of the Sun in the sky. In the narrowest sense of the ...
.
Solar time
Solar time is a calculation of the passage of time based on the position of the Sun in the sky. The fundamental unit of solar time is the day, based on the synodic rotation period. Traditionally, there are three types of time reckoning based ...
is calculated with reference to the relative position of the sun. This provided only an approximation as to time due to variations in orbits and had become unsuitable for day-to-day purposes. It was replaced by local mean time, which eliminated the variation due to
seasonal differences and anomalies. It also took account of the
longitude
Longitude (, ) is a geographic coordinate that specifies the east- west position of a point on the surface of the Earth, or another celestial body. It is an angular measurement, usually expressed in degrees and denoted by the Greek lett ...
of a location and enabled a precise time to be applied.
Such new-found precision did not overcome a different problem: the differences between the local times of neighbouring towns. In Britain, local time differed by up to 20 minutes from that of London. For example,
Oxford
Oxford () is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city and non-metropolitan district in Oxfordshire, England, of which it is the county town.
The city is home to the University of Oxford, the List of oldest universities in continuou ...
Time was 5 minutes behind Greenwich Time,
Leeds
Leeds is a city in West Yorkshire, England. It is the largest settlement in Yorkshire and the administrative centre of the City of Leeds Metropolitan Borough, which is the second most populous district in the United Kingdom. It is built aro ...
Time 6 minutes behind,
Carnforth 11 minutes behind, and
Barrow almost 13 minutes behind. In India and North America, these differences could be 60 minutes or more.
Almanacs
An almanac (also spelled almanack and almanach) is a regularly published listing of a set of current information about one or multiple subjects. It includes information like weather forecasting, weather forecasts, farmers' sowing, planting dates ...
containing tables were published and instructions attached to sundials to enable the differences between local times to be computed.
Before the arrival of the railways, journeys between the larger cities and towns could take many hours or days, and these differences could be dealt with by adjusting the hands of a watch periodically en route. In Britain, the coaching companies published schedules providing details of the corrections required. However, this variation in local times was large enough to present problems for the railway schedules. For instance,
Leeds
Leeds is a city in West Yorkshire, England. It is the largest settlement in Yorkshire and the administrative centre of the City of Leeds Metropolitan Borough, which is the second most populous district in the United Kingdom. It is built aro ...
time was six minutes behind London, while
Bristol
Bristol () is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city, unitary authority area and ceremonial county in South West England, the most populous city in the region. Built around the River Avon, Bristol, River Avon, it is bordered by t ...
was ten minutes behind; sunrise for towns to the east, such as
Norwich
Norwich () is a cathedral city and district of the county of Norfolk, England, of which it is the county town. It lies by the River Wensum, about north-east of London, north of Ipswich and east of Peterborough. The population of the Norwich ...
, occurred several minutes ahead of London. It soon became apparent that even such small discrepancies in times caused confusion, disruption, or even accidents.
Influence of the electric telegraph
The
electric telegraph
Electrical telegraphy is Point-to-point (telecommunications), point-to-point distance communicating via sending electric signals over wire, a system primarily used from the 1840s until the late 20th century. It was the first electrical telecom ...
, which had been developed in the early part of the 19th century, was refined by
William Fothergill Cooke
Sir William Fothergill Cooke (4 May 1806 – 25 June 1879) was an English inventor. He was, with Charles Wheatstone, the co-inventor of the Cooke-Wheatstone electrical telegraph, which was patented in May 1837. Together with John Ricardo he fo ...
and
Charles Wheatstone
Sir Charles Wheatstone (; 6 February 1802 – 19 October 1875) was an English physicist and inventor best known for his contributions to the development of the Wheatstone bridge, originally invented by Samuel Hunter Christie, which is used to m ...
and was installed on a short section of the Great Western Railway in 1839. By 1852 a telegraph link had been constructed between a new electro-magnetic clock at Greenwich and initially
Lewisham
Lewisham ( ) is an area of southeast London, England, south of Charing Cross. It is the principal area of the London Borough of Lewisham, and was within the Historic counties of England, historic county of Kent until 1889. It is identified in ...
, and shortly after this
London Bridge
The name "London Bridge" refers to several historic crossings that have spanned the River Thames between the City of London and Southwark in central London since Roman Britain, Roman times. The current crossing, which opened to traffic in 197 ...
stations. It also connected via the Central Telegraph Station of the Electric Time Company in the City of London, which enabled the transmission of a time signal along the railway telegraphic network to other stations. By 1855 time signals from Greenwich could be sent through wires alongside the railway lines across the length and breadth of Britain. This technology was also used in India to synchronise railway time.
Introduction of railway time
Great Britain
Before the advent of the telegraph, stationmasters adjusted their clocks using tables supplied by the railway company to convert local time to London Time. In turn, train guards set their chronometers against those clocks.
The introduction of railway time was in the end swift despite not being straightforward. The Great Western Railway was the first to standardise its timetable on Greenwich Mean Time, in November 1840. One of the most vociferous proponents of standardising time on the railways was
Henry Booth, Secretary of the
Liverpool and Manchester Railway
The Liverpool and Manchester Railway (L&MR) was the first inter-city railway in the world. It Opening of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, opened on 15 September 1830 between the Lancashire towns of Liverpool and Manchester in England. It ...
, who by January 1846 had ordered the adjustment of clocks to Greenwich Mean Time at both
Liverpool
Liverpool is a port City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. It is situated on the eastern side of the River Mersey, Mersey Estuary, near the Irish Sea, north-west of London. With a population ...
and
Manchester
Manchester () is a city and the metropolitan borough of Greater Manchester, England. It had an estimated population of in . Greater Manchester is the third-most populous metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, with a population of 2.92&nbs ...
stations.
The
Midland Railway
The Midland Railway (MR) was a railway company in the United Kingdom from 1844 in rail transport, 1844. The Midland was one of the largest railway companies in Britain in the early 20th century, and the largest employer in Derby, where it had ...
adopted London Time at all of its stations on 1 January 1846. As a consequence, in February 1846 the town council of Nottingham ordered that the town clocks be furnished with three hands, two indicating local time and the additional one the railway and post-office London time.
On 22 September 1847, the
Railway Clearing House
The Railway Clearing House (RCH) was an organisation set up to manage the allocation of revenue collected by Railways Act 1921, pre-grouping railway companies for the conveyance of passengers and goods over the lines (or using the rolling stock ...
, set up five years earlier to coordinate the distribution of revenue between railway companies, decreed that "GMT be adopted at all stations as soon as the General Post Office permitted it". From 1 December 1847, the
London and North Western and the
Caledonian Railways switched over. By January 1848, according to
Bradshaws Railway Guide, the railways that had adopted London Time included the
London and South Western, the
Midland, the
Chester and Birkenhead, the
Lancaster and Carlisle, the
East Lancashire and the
York and North Midland.
It was reported that by 1855 that 98 percent of towns and cities had transferred to GMT.
On the other hand, not all railway companies convinced the local dignitaries to bring their clocks on public buildings in line without stern resistance. Although by 1844 the
Bristol and Exeter Railway was running to London Time, the public clocks at both
Exeter
Exeter ( ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city and the county town of Devon in South West England. It is situated on the River Exe, approximately northeast of Plymouth and southwest of Bristol.
In Roman Britain, Exeter w ...
and Bristol operated to local time but showed London Time by a second minute hand, 14 and 10 minutes ahead, respectively, of its companion. In Exeter this situation arose due to the reluctance of the Dean of Exeter Cathedral to concede to the demands of the railway company, the cathedral clock being the principal timekeeper for the city. Similarly, the clock at
The Bristol Exchange installed in 1822 subsequently had a second minute hand added. Bristol did not solely recognise railway time until September 1852. It was not for a further eight years and the arrival of the electric telegraph that railway time was the sole time recognised in these towns and others in the
West Country
The West Country is a loosely defined area within southwest England, usually taken to include the counties of Cornwall, Devon, Dorset, Somerset and Bristol, with some considering it to extend to all or parts of Wiltshire, Gloucestershire and ...
, including
Bath
Bath may refer to:
* Bathing, immersion in a fluid
** Bathtub, a large open container for water, in which a person may wash their body
** Public bathing, a public place where people bathe
* Thermae, ancient Roman public bathing facilities
Plac ...
,
Devonport and
Plymouth
Plymouth ( ) is a port city status in the United Kingdom, city and unitary authority in Devon, South West England. It is located on Devon's south coast between the rivers River Plym, Plym and River Tamar, Tamar, about southwest of Exeter and ...
. Another town that stood its ground was
Oxford
Oxford () is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city and non-metropolitan district in Oxfordshire, England, of which it is the county town.
The city is home to the University of Oxford, the List of oldest universities in continuou ...
where the great clock on
Tom Tower at
Christ Church, Oxford
Christ Church (, the temple or house, ''wikt:aedes, ædes'', of Christ, and thus sometimes known as "The House") is a Colleges of the University of Oxford, constituent college of the University of Oxford in England. Founded in 1546 by Henry V ...
had two minute hands.
It was not until 2 August 1880, when the
Statutes (Definition of Time) Act received the Royal Assent, that a unified standard time for the whole of Great Britain achieved legal status. As late as the 1950s, the Western Region of British Railways had an elaborate telephone ritual at 11:00 am for all signal boxes to synchronise their clocks with that at Paddington Station.
United States
One of the first reported incidents which brought about a change in how time was organised on railways in the United States occurred in
New England
New England is a region consisting of six states in the Northeastern United States: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. It is bordered by the state of New York (state), New York to the west and by the ...
in August 1853, the
Valley Falls train collision. Two trains heading towards each other on the same track collided as the conductors had different times set on their watches, resulting in the death of 14 passengers. Railway schedules were co-ordinated in New England shortly after this incident Numerous other collisions led to the setting up of the General Time Convention, a committee of railway companies to agree on scheduling.
[White Matthew, W - Wharton Business School, Univ of Pennsylvania - March 200]
"The Economics of Time Zones"
- Retrieved March 7
In 1870
Charles F. Dowd, who was unconnected with the railway movement or civil authorities, proposed ''A System of National Times for Railroads'', which involved a single time for railways but the keeping of local times for towns. Although this did not find favour with railway managers, in 1881 they agreed for the idea to be investigated by
William Frederick Allen, Secretary of the General Time Convention and Managing Editor of the ''Travellers' Official Guide to the Railways''. He proposed replacing the 50 different railway times with five time zones. He eventually persuaded the railway managers and the politicians running the cities that had several railway stations that it was in their interests to speedily adopt his simpler proposals, which aligned the zones with cities' railroad stations. In doing so they would pre-empt the imposition of more costly and cumbersome arrangements by different state legislators and the naval authorities, both of whom favoured retention of local times.
Right to the end there was opposition expressed by many smaller towns and cities to the imposition of railway time. For example, in
Indianapolis
Indianapolis ( ), colloquially known as Indy, is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of municipalities in Indiana, most populous city of the U.S. state of Indiana and the county seat of Marion County, Indiana, Marion ...
the report in the daily Sentinel for 17 November 1883 protested that people would have to "eat sleep work ... and marry by railroad time". However, with the support of nearly all railway companies, most cities and influential observatories such as
Yale
Yale University is a private Ivy League research university in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701, Yale is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States, and one of the nine colonial colleges ch ...
and
Harvard
Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher lear ...
, this collaborative approach led to standard railway time being introduced at noon on 18 November 1883. This consensus held and was incorporated into federal law only in 1918.
France
France adopted Paris Mean Time as its standard national time in 1891. It also required clocks inside railway stations and train schedules to be set five minutes late to allow travelers to arrive late without missing their trains, even while clocks on the external walls of railway stations displayed Paris Mean Time. In 1911, France adopted Paris Mean Time delayed 9 minutes 21 seconds, making it equivalent to Greenwich Mean Time without mentioning Greenwich. At the same time, slow railway station clocks were eliminated.
Germany
In Germany the standardisation of time had started to be discussed in the 1870s. North German railways were already regulated to
Berlin Time
The time zone in Germany is Central European Time (, ''MEZ''; UTC+01:00) and Central European Summer Time (, ''MESZ''; UTC+02:00). Daylight saving time is observed from the last Sunday in March (02:00 CET) to the last Sunday in October (03:00 CE ...
in 1874. However, it was not until 1 April 1893 that a law was established by the
German Empire
The German Empire (),; ; World Book, Inc. ''The World Book dictionary, Volume 1''. World Book, Inc., 2003. p. 572. States that Deutsches Reich translates as "German Realm" and was a former official name of Germany. also referred to as Imperia ...
"concerning the introduction of uniform time reckoning" by which all railways would operate and also all aspects of social, industrial and civil activity would henceforth be strictly regulated.
Italy
Italy
Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...
was newly unified as a country when on 12 December 1866 at the start of the winter season the railway timetables centred on
Turin
Turin ( , ; ; , then ) is a city and an important business and cultural centre in northern Italy. It is the capital city of Piedmont and of the Metropolitan City of Turin, and was the first Italian capital from 1861 to 1865. The city is main ...
,
Verona
Verona ( ; ; or ) is a city on the Adige, River Adige in Veneto, Italy, with 255,131 inhabitants. It is one of the seven provincial capitals of the region, and is the largest city Comune, municipality in the region and in Northeast Italy, nor ...
,
Florence
Florence ( ; ) is the capital city of the Italy, Italian region of Tuscany. It is also the most populated city in Tuscany, with 362,353 inhabitants, and 989,460 in Metropolitan City of Florence, its metropolitan province as of 2025.
Florence ...
,
Rome
Rome (Italian language, Italian and , ) is the capital city and most populated (municipality) of Italy. It is also the administrative centre of the Lazio Regions of Italy, region and of the Metropolitan City of Rome. A special named with 2, ...
,
Naples
Naples ( ; ; ) is the Regions of Italy, regional capital of Campania and the third-largest city of Italy, after Rome and Milan, with a population of 908,082 within the city's administrative limits as of 2025, while its Metropolitan City of N ...
and
Palermo
Palermo ( ; ; , locally also or ) is a city in southern Italy, the capital (political), capital of both the autonomous area, autonomous region of Sicily and the Metropolitan City of Palermo, the city's surrounding metropolitan province. The ...
were synchronised on the time in Rome, which although it would remain notionally at least under
French military control until 1870, was seen as the heart of the nation.
In addition to the adoption of a single railway time there was a progressive standardisation of time for civil and commercial purposes.
Milan
Milan ( , , ; ) is a city in northern Italy, regional capital of Lombardy, the largest city in Italy by urban area and the List of cities in Italy, second-most-populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of nea ...
came in line straight away, Turin and
Bologna
Bologna ( , , ; ; ) is the capital and largest city of the Emilia-Romagna region in northern Italy. It is the List of cities in Italy, seventh most populous city in Italy, with about 400,000 inhabitants and 150 different nationalities. Its M ...
on 1 January 1867,
Venice
Venice ( ; ; , formerly ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto Regions of Italy, region. It is built on a group of 118 islands that are separated by expanses of open water and by canals; portions of the city are li ...
on 1 May 1880 and
Cagliari
Cagliari (, , ; ; ; Latin: ''Caralis'') is an Comune, Italian municipality and the capital and largest city of the island of Sardinia, an Regions of Italy#Autonomous regions with special statute, autonomous region of Italy. It has about 146,62 ...
in 1886.
[Parmeggiani, Gianluigi - Osservatorio Astronomico di Bologn]
"The origin of time zones"
- Retrieved March 17, 2008.
Ireland
Ireland and France were the only countries that decided not to officially adopt Greenwich Time, reflecting the political sensitivities of the time. Dublin mean time was set 25 minutes behind London time, although it came into line with international standard time in October 1916 when summer time ended, and most railway clocks were adjusted by 35 minutes rather than one hour. A slight variation was in railway stations in
Ulster
Ulster (; or ; or ''Ulster'') is one of the four traditional or historic provinces of Ireland, Irish provinces. It is made up of nine Counties of Ireland, counties: six of these constitute Northern Ireland (a part of the United Kingdom); t ...
such as
Belfast
Belfast (, , , ; from ) is the capital city and principal port of Northern Ireland, standing on the banks of the River Lagan and connected to the open sea through Belfast Lough and the North Channel (Great Britain and Ireland), North Channel ...
and
Bangor where clocks displayed on the same dial both Dublin mean time (railway time for the island of Ireland) and Belfast Time (local time), 23 minutes and 39 seconds behind Greenwich.
Netherlands
Netherlands Railway time was based on GMT until 1909 when the country adopted '
Amsterdam time
UTC+00:20 is an identifier for a UTC offset, time offset from UTC of +00:20.
History
UTC+00:20 was used in the Netherlands from 1 May 1909 to 16 May 1940. It was known as Amsterdam Time or Dutch Time.
The exact time zone was GMT +0h 19m&n ...
' as the standard time, 19 minutes ahead of GMT. This persisted until 1940, when the
Nazi occupation of the Netherlands
Despite Dutch neutrality, Nazi Germany invaded the Netherlands on 10 May 1940 as part of '' Fall Gelb'' (Case Yellow). On 15 May 1940, one day after the bombing of Rotterdam, the Dutch forces surrendered. The Dutch government and the royal f ...
required a shift to German time, which has continued to be the standard.
Sweden
Though several private railways had been built construction of public railways in Sweden came later than most other European countries, delayed by concerns over construction costs and resistance from powerful shipping owners. Railway time was introduced on the main railway line between Stockholm and Gothenburg which opened in 1862. Timetables were based on solar time at Gothenburg, the westernmost end of the line. As a consequence passengers and businesses following local time would arrive at the station ahead of the train. There were many private railways that followed local time or their own railway time. On 1 January 1879, a national standard time was introduced across the whole of Sweden, one hour advanced of Greenwich mean time.
Russia
Until 1 August 2018, Russia had a separate railway time, meaning that timetables and tickets on
Russian railways followed
Moscow Time
Moscow Time (MSK; ) is the time zone for the city of Moscow, Russia, and most of western Russia, including Saint Petersburg. It is the second-westernmost of the eleven time zones of Russia, after the non-continguous Kaliningrad enclave. It h ...
regardless of local time. Starting from 1 August 2018, each station uses the local timezone.
India
The Indian railway companies had to contend with different local times as the rapidly expanding routes extended out from
Mumbai
Mumbai ( ; ), also known as Bombay ( ; its official name until 1995), is the capital city of the Indian state of Maharashtra. Mumbai is the financial capital and the most populous city proper of India with an estimated population of 12 ...
(formerly Bombay),
Kolkata
Kolkata, also known as Calcutta ( its official name until 2001), is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of West Bengal. It lies on the eastern bank of the Hooghly River, west of the border with Bangladesh. It is the primary ...
(formerly Calcutta),
Lahore
Lahore ( ; ; ) is the capital and largest city of the Administrative units of Pakistan, Pakistani province of Punjab, Pakistan, Punjab. It is the List of cities in Pakistan by population, second-largest city in Pakistan, after Karachi, and ...
and
Chennai
Chennai, also known as Madras (List of renamed places in India#Tamil Nadu, its official name until 1996), is the capital city, capital and List of cities in Tamil Nadu by population, largest city of Tamil Nadu, the southernmost states and ...
(formerly Madras). Towards the end of the 1860s the situation became even more confused as the networks linked up. In 1870, to overcome the problems occurring, Chennai (Madras) time was adopted for all railways, for two reasons: the longitude of Chennai is roughly midway between those of Kolkata and Mumbai, and the Observatory there ran the telegraphic service which could be utilised to synchronise station times via the same time-signal system first used in Britain in 1852 to regulate railway time. ''Madras Time'' was popularised by its use in Newman's Indian Bradshaw Timetables.
However, unlike in Britain, where railway time was rapidly adopted countrywide and evolved not long after into standard time, in India the much larger size of the country and the autonomy enjoyed by Mumbai and Kolkata resulted in both Presidencies' retaining local times well into the 20th century. For the remaining part of the 19th century ''Madras time'' continued to be used by all railways.
Proposals had been put forward for at least one meridian–based time zone for India as early as 1884. However, no consensus could be reached until 1906, when a single time zone based on
Allahabad
Prayagraj (, ; ISO 15919, ISO: ), formerly and colloquially known as Allahabad, is a metropolis in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh.The other five cities were: Agra, Kanpur, Kanpur (Cawnpore), Lucknow, Meerut, and Varanasi, Varanasi (Benar ...
was established, and a standard time was introduced, which the railways came in line with. Despite this, Kolkata kept its own time until 1948 and to a lesser extent Mumbai continued to unofficially until 1955.
Korea
In 1904, during the
Russio-Japanese War the Chosen Keifu Railway, a privately run company, introduced
Japan Central Standard Time as its railway time instead of Korean traditional time (UTC+08:28).
In 1908,
Chosen Keibu Railway adopted new Korean standard time (UTC+08:30).
References
Notes
Bibliography
*
{{Portal bar, Trains
Rail transport operations
Time scales