Standardized railway time
Hora ferroviaria unificada (Railway Time)
- Date
- 1840-1847 · confidence high
- Place
- London (Great Western Railway; Railway Clearing House), England, United Kingdom
- Credited to
- Great Western Railway (1840); Henry Booth and the Railway Clearing House (general adoption, 1847)
- People
- 👤 Henry Booth1788–1869
- Field
- Knowledge & symbols
What it is
The adoption of Greenwich Mean Time at every station instead of each town's local solar time, disseminated by telegraph. A first step towards time zones (United States, 1883; the Washington conference, 1884).
A unified legal time for Britain was not enacted until 1880; time zones proper (Fleming, Dowd) date from 1879-1884, outside the range.
What it led to
- World time zones and the Greenwich meridian (1884)
- Modern temporal discipline: timetables, punctuality, the pocket watch
- The synchronisation of national economic life
- Telegraphic time signals and electric clocks
Built on
- Steam locomotive1804
- Public steam railway (Stockton and Darlington)1825
- Electric telegraph1837
- Greenwich Mean Time from the Royal Observatory
Made possible
- International time zones
- Printed timetables (Bradshaw)
- Telegraphic synchronisation of clocks