At the Throttle: Does anybody really know what time it is?
'Spring forward, fall back, twice a year we go through this time gyration. After we spring forward, when someone asks the time, “We’ll say it is 11:00 am Pacific Daylight Time.” And in the fall, “We would say it is 11:00 am Pacific Standard Time.” But why do we say standard time? The answer really has nothing to do with daylight savings time. In fact, standard time predates daylight saving time by 35 years. Confused?
To quote the band Chicago, “Does anybody really know what time it is? Does anybody really care?”
Well believe it or not, once upon a time, people really didn’t care what time it was. Time standards did not exist! The need for standardization became readily apparent with the invention of the steam locomotive and the building of railroads, but why?
Before railroads, people used local or solar time. In other words, every town had a person who went outside, checked out when the sun was at its highest point in the sky and cried out, “It is noon!” And everyone agreed.
Local time worked great for an agricultural society. And because people walked or rode a horse going from one town to another, the difference in time didn’t matter. The coming of industrialization and the iron horse created the need for a standard time.
Railroading changed everything. If you built a railroad that ran north south, time wasn’t an issue. All of the towns along your line had the same time. But if you built an east-west railroad, you had problems because every town along your line had a different time!
The completion of the transcontinental railroads at Promontory, Utah on May 10, 1869 illustrated the problem. The building of the transcontinental railroad was the largest construction project of its day. Now two bands of steel would join the eastern and western United States joining the nation.
The nation waited with bated breath for the magic moment when the last spike would be driven home. The spike maul to be used and the last spike were wired to the telegraph line. When the maul struck the spike, the exact moment in time of the completion of the transcontinental railroad would be transmitted along telegraph lines to reporters waiting in cities and towns across the entire nation!
Leland Stanford, President of the Central Pacific Railroad, raised the maul to drive the last spike to complete the railroad. When he hit the last spike, the announcement would be telegraphed to the nation. Stanford swung the spike maul and MISSED! But an eager telegrapher relayed the message, “Done!”
The moment was recorded, but with no time standards in place, the time the last spike was driven was reported in accordance with local time across the country: 12:45 p.m. at Promontory, 12:30 p.m. in Virginia City, both 11:44 and 11:46 a.m. in San Francisco, and 2:47 p.m. in Washington D.C.'>>>
http://www.elynews.com/2016/03/11/throttle-anybody-really-know-time-2/
