Time Zones for Railways in North America

Beyond the free advertising and any conscience-nudging they accomplished, there was probably a reason why small town churches had bells.

Because church services had a schedule, like any other professional workplace, it was important that people arrive on time to make the most efficient use of the professional resources being offered.

After farmers and townspeople had basic literacy, a number of them probably did not have the money to purchase personal timepieces. In many cases, daily activities were scheduled around the available light provided by the sun, and a watchful eye was kept on its position on the busiest of days. Artificial light was another expensive luxury which people might choose to use sparingly.

Today, we are accustomed to having the exact time always on display at the corner of our computer screens or available on our smartphones. We are never without cheap, plentiful artificial light. 

Unlike most of our Canadian ancestors 200 years ago, today, we all routinely travel farther than walking distance from our homes. Whether it was powering factories, generating electricity, pumping a city's water, or providing transportation ... steam power made remarkable changes in how Canadians lived.

While steam power solved problems, it created new ones. 

... Many Canadians vaguely know the 'Canadian Heritage' idea that Sandford Fleming (later knighted in 1897 by Queen Victoria) 'invented time zones'.

Fleming's Project and Its Inspiration

One of the three founders of the Canadian Institute in 1849 was Sandford Fleming (1827-1915). The Institute began as an organization for surveyors, civil engineers and architects working in the Toronto area. Today it is known as the Royal Canadian Institute for Science.

Among his many other projects and interests, Fleming worked on what would eventually become UTC - Coordinated Universal Time. He designed a system of 24 time zones. 

In 1874, the 49-year-old Fleming was stuck overnight at Bandoran, Ireland (Bundoran on GoogleMaps) waiting for a train to Londonderry after a visit to a friend in Sligo. It was necessary for him to coordinate several modes of transport for his trip and he had arrived at Bandoran for a 5:35 PM train - which, due to a printer's error - did not actually depart until 05:35 AM. He could not understand why people still used a 12-hour clock and AM and PM ... the reason for his 12 hours of railway station purgatory. He set out to devise a better system which included the hope that people could master a 24 hour clock. 

Fleming's Method - A World View

Patiently, through the Canadian Institute, and through the Governor General Lord Lorne (Queen Victoria's son-in-law), Fleming advanced his papers for a world-wide system of 24 time zones into the scientific community of the British Empire, and also toward sympathetic scientists and thinkers in continental Europe. I think the first paper I found of his at archive.org on this topic was from 1876.

He was not the first person to come up with the 24 time zone concept. It would take the help of many people to modify, promote and implement a workable system of world time zones, and to overcome the petty political objections of some of the world powers. I think Fleming was successful because of the cooperative and patient approach he took. 

A Prime Meridian is generally assigned Zero Degrees of Longitude. An observatory at one point on the prime meridian serves as the basis for published tables, which predict where certain stars will be seen in the sky, at exact moments in 'local time' at points around the world. The ability to navigate east and west with precision on the featureless oceans was made possible by the development of the concept of 'longitude'. 

Latitude was easier to master earlier in history because the sun's shortest shadow occurs at noon, and the sun's angle above the horizon changes as we travel north or south. 

An advantage Fleming had in advancing his idea was the fact that his empire already had an internationally successful system for worldwide navigation by sea. Much of the world used British navigation charts, which were keyed to the British Prime Meridian at the Royal Observatory Greenwich (near London). The observatory was originally commissioned by King Charles II in 1675.

Having a Good Time on Their Own

Many nations had their own 'prime meridian' observatories, where their respective official times were derived and communicated to support their national activities or empire-wide seafaring operations. The easiest example for us to imagine was the French observatory in Paris. A proud Frenchman of this era would never use British time!

In the Fleming biography Time Lord (Clark Blaise; 2000; Random House), Blaise writes that there were about ten prime meridians used by different countries in the late 1800s.

But Not for Long

The sedate world of wind and sail had been compatible with travellers living life timed by the sun while at sea ... and changing personal timepieces to local time upon reaching port. Ship's Bells were probably the main time-keeping method for normal travellers until fast steamships were developed. Meanwhile, the ship's crew used a chronometer and optical instruments to plot their slow progress on the ocean - using the published charts and tables from Greenwich.

However, the land-based 'wired' telegraph and its undersea cables now communicated between the continents at the speed of light ...

And some railway systems covered thousands of miles. Fast trains could travel a long distance during the course of a day ...

Train passengers and the big American railroads were the first groups to be negatively affected by all of this new high-speed travel, as you'll see below.

*  *  *

This compilation was published in 1953 and I purchased it second hand at some point in history. It was in mint condition when I first read it a couple of months ago. To some extent, as you'd expect, it has a '1950s Cowboys and Indians' popular approach to railroad history, but there are some really good historical pieces as well. 

The excellent account of all the problems of the American railroads and travellers before standard time ... follows on that same yellowed paper farther below.

*  *  *

First, here is a contemporary article (October 1883) which quotes the chief proponent of a US railroad time zone system. William Frederick Allen (1846-1915) was a civil engineer by training and the secretary of the General Time Convention of the American Railroad Association. He had presented his system on 8 April 1883 at their semi-annual meeting in St Louis. 

St Louis was served by many railroads and recognized six official times.

from: American Railroad Journal; George F Swain; Oct 1883; Phenix Publishing, New York. archive.org

Below, is probably a faithful 1889 representation of Allen's system from 1883, as it was approved and implemented by the railroads in the US and in Canada after the October 1883 convention. 

Notice the naming of Intercolonial Time. Being named after a particular railway, we can infer that our friend had some influence over these developments. (In 1862, before he was formally involved in the project ... Fleming had written a 60-page paper and submitted it to the 'Government of Canada': Suggestions on the Inter-Colonial Railway and the construction of a highway and telegraph line between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans within British Territory.)

Allen gathered concentrations of railroad activity together to make a zone - to make scheduling and timekeeping easier for operations. The railroad system was not designed to meet the needs of the general population, it was designed to help resolve the timekeeping and scheduling chaos on the railroads.

I have a more recent version of this large atlas with a typically very fragile spine. The original posted image below is actually a photo of the opened atlas with someone holding it in the best position for a photograph. I haven't seen any other images which show what the original Allen system was actually like. This is a great artifact to which to have access! As a bonus, you can see the chart of all of the solar deviations within the new standard time zones - for those who might want to convert back to local natural time from railroad time. 

(If you intend to read the long account, farther below, note that on the chart below, Washington DC Standard Time is 8 minutes faster than solar time. Hint: Page 516)

from: Divisions of Standard Time; George F Cram; 1889; from Newberry Library. archive org 

Allen wanted to solve the American railroads' problems, but he had made one significant change to what might have been expected. The Naval Observatory in Washington DC was established in 1842. Like other existing or aspiring great powers, there was a Washington Prime Meridian - independent from Britain's.

Allen chose to use the Greenwich Prime Meridian as the basis for his system. As the result of this choice, our always present, but as yet unmentioned friend, Sandford Fleming, was able to integrate Allen's system into his design for a worldwide system of time zones - also based on Greenwich.

Here is the interesting account of the conditions which existed before railroad standard time.

end

HaltoAlto! - A Loathsome Opinion Piece

To be better informed during Trump-45 I had a subscription to the New York Times. I cancelled it after a year or so because I was just reading opinion columns. On a Canadian news aggregator, there are always ten new Canadian opinion pieces on display - generally on Canadian politics - written by the same opinion shapers day after day. How exhausting and sad it must be to regularly assert that the truth is to be found in your opinion. Like everybody, I have one - but I usually sit on it.

There have always been people who care and who have been effective at VIA Rail - at all levels. Indeed Rolly Martin was one of them. However, there were things about VIA which he never could have fixed because of the lack of modern equipment.

Like support for Ukraine, VIA has always received 'not enough, just in time'. Often I have wondered if VIA Directors and Executives over the decades have always had an appropriate single-minded focus on improving passenger rail service in Canada. 

... Hopefully the Alto project will continue to operate at arm's length from VIA. VIA personnel already have enough issues to keep them really busy.

Evening westbounds at Kingston in 1981.
It's hard for you to believe, my son, but 45 years ago VIA Rail passengers sometimes became stranded!

The Future of Passenger Rail in the Past

Decades ago, conventional wisdom held that Canadian intercity passenger rail services were destined for extinction because sensible people would choose the personal convenience of autos driven on our new superhighways, or the speed of aircraft. Only people who were 'above' taking the bus took the train.

The banishment of Ottawa's downtown railway station in the 1960s and the drive'n'fly location of the Montreal-Mirabel International Airport illustrate the failure to shrewdly interpret what the future holds. After half a century, in spite of VIA's many failures, and the failures of the host railway(s), there is still a demand for intercity passenger trains. 

This is not the past when main line passenger trains were 10-15 cars long (1100 tons) and freight trains were 50-100 cars long (4000 tons). In that era, the trucks of cute little 40-ton railcars hammered and hunted against the rails, followed by a small army always ready to tighten bolts, line, jack and shim.

This is not the past when the operators of a single company ranked all of the trains on their rails - either as most-favoured trains of numbered classes, or expected them to help themselves over the road as extra trains. 

Rattling Down the Main Like a Janky South Park Animation

Flanged wheels running on steel rails is a remarkable technology for carrying any number of heavy loads efficiently on a low-friction surface ... or light loads very fast on a perfectly aligned surface.  

The Canadian National Railway has become just another railroad in the American model (opines this 'typically greedy' beneficial shareholder). For it to behave differently would be a liability. It is the wily Fred Trump to homeless VIA's mandated tenancy across Canada. However, CN's rails are no longer optimized for VIA's flanged wheels, particularly on the patchwork of lines which VIA styles as The Corridor.

Today, when passenger and freight trains share the tracks, the mathematical odds are generally excellent for the safety of passengers. However, the physics will not be forgiving if lumber or propane loads ever make contact with a passenger train. Every transportation system has its risks, but why do we accept this as 'normal'?

With great regularity, as they traverse CN's old Grand Trunk stone bridges, cuts and fills, VIA's trains are constantly at the mercy of motorists who don't understand level crossing safety, trespassers, people in mental distress ... and the ups and downs of massive distributed power consists we wish the two Georges and Rudolf could come back to life to see.

from: UCRS Newsletter, December 1968.
Welcome to Kingston!

HaltoAlto!

I have been following the news reports of the Alto public information sessions being held in a couple of rural locations. These sessions are probably being held to discover geographical points of resistance, to inform, and to condition local public opinion. There are ample on-line avenues for input as well. 

I think most people are understandably unhappy about any new transportation corridor which may approach their property. Someone asked: Why can't more trains be put on the existing lines and be speeded up a little? Sorry, we can't give you answers - this is just an information session.

One suave Alto PR rep suggested that he likes to think of this transportation project as 'bringing people together'. Though he probably does not mean with the torches and pitchforks which are brought to some rural information sessions.

At least two local councils near Kingston reactively voted against a new rail corridor in their jurisdictions. If a line is to serve Kingston - let it do so through the City of Kingston! With such logic it is hard to argue.

from: tec0kf; 鉄道史資料保存団. archive.org

In 1965 the 320 miles between Osaka and Tokyo were routinely covered in 3 hours, 10 minutes.

from: tec0kf; 鉄道史資料保存団. archive.org

What Is Down the Track? 

Like many Boomers and Joneses I have made the sage pronouncement that I won't be around to ride on the completed Alto system. The applause which followed surprised me. 

Canadians once fought gallantly in, worked to help win, observed, ignored, or were placed in Interior Housing Centres because of, World War Two. But history is never over. Only history books neatly bookend time.

Over 700,000 Canadians who had been immersed in the events of World War Two never found out how it ended ... simply because their time was up and they died before it ended.

Nonetheless, while alive, they still worked toward the future they believed in, as if their descendants depended on them. 

It spectacularly fails to make us 'Great Again' in the eyes of some people. However, some of us see the planning of transportation systems to decrease carbon emissions, where reasonable, as one of many things we can do for our descendants.

Coalie, Mascot of the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement.
Destined for the Ashpit of History.

What Is Coming Down the Pike, and Out of the Blue?... in 20 to 40 years.

Most Canadians are reasonable people who understand climate science. Many are taking action on their own to decrease their impact on the environment. Even with electric road vehicles, imagining our present habits continuing into the future is a pretty normal thing to do. 

People 'will always' drive their cars between Montreal and Toronto. People who have more money than time will continue to fly between eastern Canadian cities such as Toronto, Ottawa and Montreal. 

However, it is hard to imagine where the additional highways will be built to connect Montreal and Toronto. How enjoyable will it be to use the highways of the future? What are the future projections for truck traffic? 

Rough estimates suggest an increase of 50% on current volumes of auto and truck traffic in the next 20 years ... Of course, there are many variables which could influence outcomes in the future.

I regret that I won't be around to see self-driving trucks, and self-driving cars, self-driving their way on the 401 through Toronto during the first snowstorm of the year.

Will flying continue to be the pleasant, convenient, reliable and cheap exercise that it currently is?

Will the angry people at Alto information sessions, or the knee-jerking HaltoAlto! municipalities, happily embrace the wider corridors taken for new highways (like the 407), and the inevitable new power lines, any more than they welcome a relatively narrow Alto line? 

Currently, about 7% of Ontario farmland (about 750,000 acres, 3000 square kilometres) is used to grow corn, to ferment for ethanol, to burn in cars. People may complain about a new electric rail corridor taking up farmland. However, if ICE vehicle demand for ethanol is decreased, some farmland can be returned to the purpose of producing food. 

from: UCRS Newsletter, December 1968.

Have We Ever Done This Before?

We've had proper controlled access highways since the 1960s. Almost no one would dream of operating a snowmobile on Highway 401 or walk on it as a short cut. 

We've never had a proper high-speed intercity railway system which was designed solely for passenger service. While the LRC equipment was designed to make electrification possible, almost all modern Canadian passenger locomotives have lugged on-board generating systems to power their traction motors.

During Air Canada strikes in the 1980s, 20-car passenger trains were run when necessary. Railway technology is scalable and track-capacity-efficient in a way which aircraft and highway vehicles are not. 

... We've forgotten about this characteristic because VIA barely has enough spare equipment to run a Grey Cup special. There are other constraints. Want to run extra passenger trains to meet demand? ... work it out with landlord 'Fred Trump'. 

A proper high-speed passenger rail system has the capacity to move large numbers of people as required. 

To counter the circuitous Alto route: If CN ever chooses to install concrete ties and maintain its Kingston Subdivision track structure, VIA Montreal-Toronto trains could still have the option of at least rivalling Alto travelling times. 

Alto is predicting 'about' a 3 hour travelling time on their Montreal-Ottawa-Toronto route. 

Sixty-one (61) years ago, Japan's 1965 Shinkansen could travel Montreal to Toronto (straight line) in 3 hours 10 minutes. 

A compelling case could have been made for a direct Alto route between Montreal and Toronto. 

Air Canada has become just another air carrier in the American model. For it to behave differently would be a liability. 

Air Canada is a member of the Cadence Consortium which is now behind Alto. Flying between Montreal and Toronto only takes about 1 hour 30 minutes.

Many older readers will remember the high regard many Canadians had for Canadian National Railways and Air Canada when they were still Crown corporations.

from: Brockville Railfan, YouTube, 19 February 2026.
I double-checked - the switch heaters are off and are not refracting light.
Those are the rails.

Like many, in recent years I've had a bellyful of flowery political rhetoric which yields no results. 

I may never use this new high-speed passenger rail system. I think it is a reasonable investment in an asset which will benefit Canadians in the future. It will also decrease the impact of transportation on the environment.

And we - as people with an interest in, and knowledge about, railway technology - should exert steady pressure on those responsible for creating the Alto system. They should be designing a system which will still be considered a valuable transportation asset 50 years after it opens.