Railroading and the Pocket Watch
the rise and fall of the Railroad Watch
As concerns mounted over train accidents as railroading grew in the United States in the latter 1800s, pocket watches gained popularity. Railroad conductors need to know precise times and soon the pocket watch, or rather, the railroad watch was born.
There were several efforts to come up with a specific set of requirements for the pocket watches that would be used by the railroads.
A famous wreck in 1891 occurred because the railroad workers didn't have the same time. One of the engineers watches had stopped working for 4 minutes, leading to the disaster.
Rising use
The railroads soon created a Chief Time Inspector who was responsible for the timepieces worn by railroad workers, engineers and conductors.
In 1893, new rules were adopted by all major railroads for the watches to be worn. The railroad-grade pocket watches - railroad watches - had to meet these standards. among them:
"open faced, size 16 or 18, minimum of 17 jewels, adjusted to at least five positions, have a double roller, winding stem at 12 o'clock and bold arabic numerals on a white dial."
These requirements would change many times over the years as certain settings and styles came in and out of fashion for timepieces, but the basic tenet remained the same: uniform, well-kept time.
Even today, railroad personnel are expected to have accurate timepieces and are subject to random tests by superiors.
Declining use
Of course, today you don't see pocket watches. What happened? Wristwatches, that's what.
Back at the turn of the 20th century, wristwatches were considered feminine and not worn by men. Pocket watches were the rule of the day. In fact, there was a pocket for just such a watch put into every suit made for men at the time.
Around the time of WWI that changed, though, as men in the field started to see the value in having a watch they could quickly glance at.
Still, the pocket watch remained popular with railroads long after it had lost its popularity with most others.