This Day in History: Railroad companies create the first time zones

On this day in 1883, railroad companies create the first time zones. Yes, you heard that right. Private individuals saw a problem and solved it without involving the federal government.

What a wonderfully American “do it yourself” mindset! Such determination and perseverance have always been at the foundations of our country, making our nation great.

Before time zones, Americans generally relied upon the local time in their communities. That local time was based upon the movement of the sun in the sky, so the time could vary from city to city. Cities would usually designate one clock in the area—perhaps at a certain church or business—as the official clock for the community. This system caused a lot of headaches for the railroads. Imagine if you are a train trying to keep a schedule as you cross the continent, but the time varies at each stop.

It was difficult, to say the least.

“The existence of different local time zones created major problems for the railroad,” Jon Goldman, chief curator at the B&O Railroad Museum explains. “At best, people might miss their train; at worst, trains were more likely to collide when using a single track.”

A railroad might adopt a particular local time, but it could still get confusing.

“Passengers in Buffalo, N.Y., were confronted by three station clocks,” a Trains magazine article explains. “One was set to New York City time, the standard used by the New York Central RR. The second showed Columbus time for the convenience of Lake Shore & Michigan Southern passengers. And the third clock indicated local Buffalo time. . . . By the 1880s, the nation’s railroads were using at least 68 different time standards, and even routine tasks, such as selling tickets for connecting trains, were becoming almost impossible.”

Something had to be done. An association of railroads soon announced that it would recognize precisely four time zones, each one hour apart: Eastern, Central, Mountain, and Pacific. At noon on November 18, 1883, every railroad clock across the country would be set in accordance with the new standardized time. These clocks would be kept in sync with a daily telegraph signal.

(The Library of Congress explains that “noon” was technically “noon on the seventy-fifth meridian west of Greenwich, England,” which would have been “roughly four minutes after local noon in New York City,” so you can see even the effort to synchronize time had its own complications!)

The railroads were not the first to consider a system of standardized time. Astronomers had long advocated for such a system, and the time zones that had been set up by the railroads relied heavily on their work.

The railroads’ action spurred others into action. Local governments across the country were soon supporting the idea and adopting it with their own ordinances.

Yep, local governments—not the federal government—assisted this effort by private companies. Because it really is not necessary to involve the federal government most of the time, as our ancestors knew.

The federal government did not get involved until 1918. When the feds finally acted . . . . Well, yes, you guessed it. They created something that many of us hate today: Daylight Saving Time.

The story might leave you wondering: What would have happened if the federal government had never gotten involved and simply left the matter to the states and to individuals, where it began?

Primary Sources:

• Carl Swanson, How railroads standardized time in the US (Trains Mag., Oct. 16, 2022)

• History of Time Zones and Daylight Saving Time (DST) (Bureau of Transportation Statistics; January 17, 2023)

• Jennifer González, Whose Time is it Anyway? A Brief History of Standardized Time Zones in the United States (Library of Congress; Nov. 1, 2024)

• Lynn Brown, How railroads inspired the creation of time zones (BBC; November 18, 2024)

• On Time: How America Learned to Live by the Clock: Synchronizing Time (National Museum of American History)

• Surprising Railroad Inventions: U.S. Time Zones (Union Pacific; March 10, 2020)