Watch Terminology Dictionary

These clocks were used for accurate railroad operation. Because they were more accurate than standard pocket watches, they were sometimes called railroad chronometers. Until 1883, when standard time was established, time was not standardized within the country. As a result, railroad schedules required the number of hours and minutes it would take to travel from one point to another, but inaccuracies in the clocks themselves often led to significant delays. Against this backdrop, in 1891, an express mail train collided with a locomotive on the Lake Shore Railroad in Kipton, Ohio. The accident occurred because the clock stopped for four minutes. This incident prompted watch merchant Webster Clay Ball (1847–1922) to be appointed U.S. Superintendent Inspector of Clocks that same year and established the Railroad Clock Standard. These strict regulations required clocks to be within 30 seconds per week of the standard time set by the Naval Observatory in Washington, D.C., to be fully adjusted twice a year, to have a minimum of 17 jewels, a 16- or 18-position movement, and to be adjusted in five positions. Waltham, Elgin, Hamilton, Illinois, and other companies manufactured railroad watches based on Ball's specifications. In Japan, the 19-type Seiko was adopted as a railroad watch in 1929 and was widely used until the 1960s.