Western Railroad Discussion > Time Standard or Daylight savings?

I have asked the question before, however when you start to get old....
Years ago I went on a train ride with my mom during the summer around 1962/1. We went from San Bruno to San Francisco. When we got to SF I seemed to remember the clock at the SF station being an hour behind.  I asked my mom about it and she told me Railroads run on Standard Time.  Or did the station agent just not want to take the time to correct the clock?  If the railroads did run on Standard Time when the practice end?
Later,
Charlesn

Yes, it used to be that railroads operated on Standard Time.
Always caused alot of confusion with the public on what time a train arrived/left.
Growing up in a RR household, our home operated on Standard time.
zr190

Not 100% sure but I believe WWII.

I know the RRs ran on Standard Time well into the 1960s. I think it was sometime in the 70s that they finally adopted Daylight Saving Time.

When a BNSF train leaves east out of Needles, it's on Mountain Daylight Time.  That includes Amtrak.   As they cross the state of Arizona, local time all year long is Mountain Standard Time, so Amtrak's public schedules are MST.  The Flagstaff Virtual Railfan camera clock is MST, so if you are comparing train times to BNSF MDT line ups, it can get confusing.

mapboy

mapboy Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> When a BNSF train leaves east out of Needles, it's
> on Mountain Daylight Time.  That includes Amtrak.
>   As they cross the state of Arizona, local time
> all year long is Mountain Standard Time, so
> Amtrak's public schedules are MST.  The Flagstaff
> Virtual Railfan camera clock is MST, so if you are
> comparing train times to BNSF MDT line ups, it can
> get confusing.
>
> mapboy

Wow, when did Needles leave California and join Arizona?

jst3751 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Wow, when did Needles leave California and join
> Arizona?

Who said Needles was in Arizona?  I could have made it more wordy and said, "When a BNSF train leaves east out of Needles, CA, it's on Mountain Daylight Time.  As they cross the Colorado River and the state of Arizona, ..."  but it gave you an opportunity.

mapboy

mapboy Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> jst3751 Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Wow, when did Needles leave California and join
> > Arizona?
>
> Who said Needles was in Arizona?  I could have
> made it more wordy and said, "When a BNSF train
> leaves east out of Needles, CA, it's on Mountain
> Daylight Time.  As they cross the Colorado River
> and the state of Arizona, ..."  but it gave you
> an opportunity.
>
> mapboy

A train within the State of California would NEVER be on MDT. It would be on Pacific Time or if forethought since it is going east MST.

jst3751 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> mapboy Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > jst3751 Wrote:
> >
> --------------------------------------------------
>
> > -----
> > > Wow, when did Needles leave California and
> join
> > > Arizona?
> >
> > Who said Needles was in Arizona?  I could have
> > made it more wordy and said, "When a BNSF train
> > leaves east out of Needles, CA, it's on
> Mountain
> > Daylight Time.  As they cross the Colorado
> River
> > and the state of Arizona, ..."  but it gave
> you
> > an opportunity.
> >
> > mapboy
>
> A train within the State of California would NEVER
> be on MDT. It would be on Pacific Time or if
> forethought since it is going east MST.


From BNSF Southwest Division #4, July 1, 2009, page 34, Seligman Subdivision-
"Time Zone Change at MP 578.4—The time changes from Mountain to Pacific for WWD trains and from Pacific to Mountain for EWD trains at MP 578.4."

MP 578.4 is Needles, CA.  In summer, it's PDT and MDT.  You're trying too hard.

mapboy

mapboy is correct, if you are an operating employee on that portion of the BNSF east of the depot in Needles in the summer, you are officially on MDT whether you are in California or Arizona.

Posted from iPhone

About 1967, the SP switched over in its ETT

czephyr17 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> mapboy is correct, if you are an operating
> employee on that portion of the BNSF east of the
> depot in Needles in the summer, you are officially
> on MDT whether you are in California or Arizona.
>
> Posted from iPhone

Since that is official information that would only be available to actual railroad employees, and since this is a site open to railfans who are not necessarily railroad employees, then it would have been up to him to so state that information. 

Western Pacific trackage in Utah ran on Pacific Time to match the rest of the railroad. Don't know when that started, but long before I hired out.

I believe that the national daylight saving law was passed about 1964 or so because I started on the Northern Pacific as a clerk at Northtown Yard (Minneapolis) and we were on Daylight Time.   The BN clerks union had an understanding with the BN regarding the beginning and ending of daylight savings time. Basically it says that if you work night on the night before DST starts you get eight hours pay for seven hours work and a list is kept of those worked on the DST beginning shift and those worked at the end of the shift and compare those lists. If you both the beginning and end of DST you don't get an extra hour pay. If you did not begin DST, then you receive an extra hour pay.

Ed Burns
Retired NP BN BNSF Clerk from Northtown..

 

jst3751 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Since that is official information that would only
> be available to actual railroad employees, and
> since this is a site open to railfans who are not
> necessarily railroad employees, then it would have
> been up to him to so state that information. 

I shared that information when I said, "When a BNSF train leaves east out of Needles, it's on Mountain Daylight Time."  Why would you then think it's correct to say,  "A train within the State of California would NEVER be on MDT."

mapboy

There are other "local options" employed by towns near time zone borders.  For example, while the state of Nevada is officially on Pacific Time, the town of West Wendover, Nevada observes Mountain Time along with its twin-cities neighbor Wendover, Utah.  The change in time zone sign between Mountain and Pacific zones is located on Interstate 80 about 3 miles west of the official state boundary.

SP once they left Ogden, it was PT

The Uniform Time Act of 1966 officially restored Daylight Saving Time starting on the last Sunday of April and ending on the last Sunday of October. Prior to that there was no federal law requiring jurisdictions to follow Daylight Saving Time and the US was a patchwork quilt of counties and sometimes cities that observed DST at different times of the year. We can credit railroads for establishing standard time zones in 1883. The zones became federal law in 1918 (with no penalty for not following the federal standards). The original time zone lines were railroad based with the official line defined as "west of the XX railroad" type of language. Officially counties were split by the railroads and there were long exception lists in the law allowing specifically named railroads to operate on a different time zone. Those specific exceptions went away in 1966.

Many railroads still operate entire districts on a different standard time than the communities they serve but as most railroads are non-passenger the public doesn't get involved. Signalling systems have removed timed meets from the timetables (schedules where a train was to wait at a siding for a meet at a specific time).

BNSF operates on PDT west of Whitefish MT. AMTK says MDT to Idaho border.

Ed

Don't feed the troll.

jst3751 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> mapboy Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > When a BNSF train leaves east out of Needles,
> it's
> > on Mountain Daylight Time.  That includes
> Amtrak.
> >   As they cross the state of Arizona, local
> time
> > all year long is Mountain Standard Time, so
> > Amtrak's public schedules are MST.  The
> Flagstaff
> > Virtual Railfan camera clock is MST, so if you
> are
> > comparing train times to BNSF MDT line ups, it
> can
> > get confusing.
> >
> > mapboy
>
> Wow, when did Needles leave California and join
> Arizona?

Bob Wilcox
Charlottesville, VA
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