Keeping Time at the Station

A Before the railways arrived, every town in the country of Estland kept its own time, set by the position of the sun. When the sun was highest in the sky, it was noon, and the town clock was adjusted accordingly. Because the country stretches a long way from east to west, the western market town of Fennick was eleven minutes behind the capital, Aldermoor. When the fastest journey between them took two days by horse-drawn coach, nobody cared about a difference of a few minutes.

B The railway changed everything. For the first time, a traveller could leave Aldermoor in the morning and reach Fennick by the afternoon, and timetables had to show when trains would depart from each station. Early timetables printed both local time and Aldermoor time side by side, which confused many passengers. In 1846 a wool merchant named Josiah Pell missed an important train because he had read the wrong column. He took the railway company to court, claiming the timetable was misleading, but the judge ruled against him.

C In 1852 the main railway company decided that all its stations would follow Aldermoor time. Some station clocks were given two minute hands, one showing local time and one showing railway time, to help people adjust. Not every town accepted the change willingly. In Fennick, the church clock continued to show local time for almost thirty years, and it was only in 1880, when a national law made Aldermoor time official everywhere, that it was finally reset.

D Keeping hundreds of station clocks in agreement was a considerable task. Every morning at ten o'clock, the observatory in Aldermoor sent an electric signal along the telegraph wires to every station. On receiving it, the station master checked the clock and corrected it if necessary. Travelling inspectors made surprise visits, and a station master whose clock was found to be more than one minute wrong could lose a week's wages.

E The clocks themselves were designed to be read quickly by people in a hurry. Most had white faces with thick black numbers, and many were double-sided, so they could be seen from both platforms. The largest, which still hangs at Aldermoor Central, has a face 3.6 metres across and a minute hand that weighs more than an adult man. Almost all of the early station clocks were made by a single family firm based in the capital.

F In the 1990s, most of the old mechanical clocks were replaced with digital displays controlled by radio signals, and many were sold or thrown away. A few, however, have survived. At Fennick station, a group of volunteers climbs a narrow ladder every Sunday to wind the original clock by hand, and they have kept it running since 2003. The clock has become a small tourist attraction in its own right.