The railway has a rich history, and its development spanned centuries, but key advancements were made in the 1800s with the introduction of steam engines and the advent of public travel via rail. The railways were pivotal during the Industrial Revolution and as their use grew and grew, not just in trade but also for the public, so did the need for the standardization of time.
When Did the Railway Become a Part of Public Travel?
Railways initially used horses to pull goods, but with the advent of steam engines came steam powered travel completely changing the way travel and transport was completed. The railways were expensive to build and run, and to generate more money to fund further expansion they were opened to the public as a new form of transport. The first inter-city railway was the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, designed and built by George Stephenson and opened in 1830 [1].
In the 1840s ‘Railway Mania’ took hold and there was a boom in investment and speculation which led to massive development. Following the mania, the railways continued to grow across the country over many decades. Although those who participated in the growth faced ups and downs, by 1870, 423 million passengers travelled on 16,000 miles of track, and by the end of Queen Victoria’s reign over 1100 million passengers used the railway [2]. The railway system offered new chances for travel and holidays for people and bridged the gap between town and countryside, which many took advantage of in their leisure time.
Why Was Standardization Needed?
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Sign up to our Free Weekly NewsletterAs the railway developed and spread tracks across the country, from cities to towns, public use increased- but the railways became more difficult to run because time was not standardized.
Time was kept and set by the sun- towns used local time which varied from place to place and the time in London was ahead making it difficult to schedule timetables. Therefore, catching a train was not always easy because travelling across the country meant adjusting local time to catch a train based on London time, making it easy to miss.
Drivers also had to deal with different local time zones when their trains arrived at railway stations and had to adjust their watch every time that they entered another town or city. Before the railways were established, it didn’t matter that many places kept their local time by the sun, but it became increasingly clear that this was unsustainable [3]. Trains created to cross the country in the same day needed standard time to ensure that passengers departed and arrived on schedule, and to avoid collisions with other trains.
How Were Trains Standardized?
In November 1840, The Great Western Railway (the line from London to South West England) told all stations to use London time. More railways began to use this approach- adopting Greenwich time/London time (for many the two were synonymous) for their stations and timetables, but different times could still be found between the station and the local time of the town or city [4].
To address this issue, it was suggested that all clocks should show both London time and the local time, but it was later agreed that it would be easier to show just London time on all clocks. In 1852, the timekeepers at Greenwich introduced equipment that transmitted accurate time signals throughout the country over the electric telegraph network.
Before the invention of the telegraph, station masters adjusted their clocks using tables supplied by the railway company to convert time to London time. After the invention, station master’s would adjust their clocks straight to London time based on the telegraph signals sent from Greenwich which made it easier to schedule and run trains from place to place. By 1855 almost all public authorities, including town halls and churches, used London time giving many communities access to London time too.
Prior to the expansion of the railway, there were no conventions to set how time should be measured, but it became clear that a time standard was needed. In October 1884, the International Telegraph Union held the International Meridian Conference in Washington, DC where it was decided that the world would be divided into 24 hourly time zones based on the Greenwich meridian [5].
Sources:
[1] Christian Wolmar, Fire and Steam: How the Railways Transformed Britain (Atlantic: London,2008)
[2] https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/education/resources/victorian-railways/
[3] https://www.rmg.co.uk/stories/topics/time-greenwich-mean-time-confusing-case-travellers-watch
[4] Christian Wolmar, Fire and Steam: How the Railways Transformed Britain (Atlantic: London,2008)
