Railway standard time and time zones
Hora estándar ferroviaria y husos horarios
- Date
- 1879-1883 · confidence high
- Place
- Toronto, Ontario, Canada
- Credited to
- Sandford Fleming and North American railway companies
- Field
- Knowledge & symbols
What it is
In 1879 Sandford Fleming proposed dividing the world into 24 time zones, and on 18 November 1883 US and Canadian railways unified time in five zones. The International Meridian Conference (1884) endorsed it.
In Britain the Great Western Railway had used London time since 1840; the 1883 North American change was the first continental zone system.
What it led to
- uniform time for timetables, telegraphs and navigation
- the world system of time zones and the Greenwich meridian