Office of Steam Forum for Model & Toy Steam Gas & Hot Air Engines

Hi Daniel,

Thank you for all that information.  It must have taken railway employees some little time to save enough to buy a watch to the quality required. Totally different to the UK where all the kit was provided.

The new requirements imposed by the committee's report needed a size 16 or 18 watch that was open face with Arabic numerals every five minutes at least, lever set with a twelve o'clock stem, temperature and five position adjusted to within 30 seconds a week, with a minimum of 17 jewels, along with several lessor technical specifications that needed to be met. Perhaps of greatest importance was the establishment of the position of "Time Inspector" with each railroad to come into compliance with the new standards. The time inspector was charges with making sure all the individual time pieces in use by the railroad were within the specifications of the requirements and properly set.

I am not sure that I have ever mentioned it but I was apprenticed in the horological trade. When I finished my time I applied and got a job in a Swiss watch factory, why the Swiss imported watch repairers is interesting but a little involved. Anyway, the above specifications are quite tight and the 5 positions for a pocket watch is not absolutely necessary as they mostly operate in the pendent and face up positions. Out of interest in the late 1960's when I was in Switzerland, the factory was making deck watches for Elgin, which had even tighter requirements to the above. The movements manufactured were engraved with Elgin's name and calibre numbers, I never worked on them as there were an old products while I worked on the new designs for Bulova and Hamilton.

I have always liked American watches and have worked on a lot of them, mostly Waltham and Elgin, with maybe a few other brands such as Hamilton and Riverside. I did once own a Waltham Royale but was temped into selling it.

Take care Tony.