Railroaders' Nostalgia > Railroad Watches

Thought some of the folks on here might be interested about some watches. When I hired out in engine service on the SP in April 1969 , I had to get a railroad approved watch. I made my date in San Francisco on the Coast/Western Division.  To get a Railroad Approved watch was not a cheap situation back then. Well, the purveyor  was Scolaries, across from the depot at 3rd & Townsend. They were "Railroad Approved" for new and used watches and had payroll deduction. Everyone back then was buying the new thing, wrist watches. I think Ball and Seiko were the two that were approved. Well, one afternoon when we were on spot on the Depot Job, I walked over to see what they had. You had 90 days to get one.

They had two  Hamilton pocket watches, one silver and one gold, along with the new wrist watches. Well, I wanted a pocket watch. The silver one was $110 and the gold one was $140. I choose the gold one. As it turned out, they were the last new pocket watches they had. No more were being made. I signed up for payroll deduction and I was all set. I had them inscribe my name and Fireman's date on the back and went back to work with my watch.  I used that watch during most of my career.  Back then Engineers had a free watch cleaning once or every other year in their contract. Seiko was 5 years, I think. The Chief Crew Dispatcher in SLO would take care of the young runners. One of the days you were set up running, he would fill out a free cleaning form and leave it in your mail box.  Don Andrews was the Authorized SP Watch Inspector in SLO and I never had a problem with it.  As of last August, it now sits at youngest daughters house in SLO North County, along with all my watch cards for over the years.  Looking back ,at the back of those cards, you could see what official asked to see it, who they were and the date. Lots of memories.  56 years , not a bad watch.

I had 3 other pocket watches along the line. Two were given to me and I found one in a Pawn shop in Reno for $50.  Of the ones given to me by old rails, I returned one.   The wife of of a good friend and Conductor sent me his when he passed away. 15 years later I heard through the grapevine his brother, also a conductor, had been up set that he didn't get the watch.  I knew this guy, he was retired too ,and he would come to town once a month. I called him and said to give me call the next time in and I would meet him.  He called and I showed up in Medford. I gave him a hug and handed him his brothers watch. Ya, one of those moments. 

I will offer a tip to anyone out there that may not know about railroad pocket watches. A "real" railroad approved watch has to be "Lever Set."  That means you have to unscrew the face plate , glass crystal back then, and set it aside. There is a tiny tab of metal sitting down in the threads that is part of the lever. You have to pull that  out and it curves up. Then you can twist the stem to set the proper time. When you are done, the lever is pushed back into the case and the crystal screwed back on and you are ready to go. This was to prevent changing the time by mistake when winding it.

 Do you now there was dummy out there that didn't know that?? Yup.  He thought it was  just like a regular watch. He forgot to wind it one day so he had to set the time. He unscrewed the face and used a the head of a stick pin to set the hands. It wasn't long after that he broke the glass in the face. He took it by Time Service that was on the south side of the depot in the City and told them what he needed. He watched in amazement as the jeweler took the face off replaced the crystal and pulled out the lever to set it.  Of course, he didn't say a word,  I just put it back in my pocket and left. 

Later on I got a Silver Seiko wrist watch.  Just a plain Jane but it was  railroad approved. Later I purchased a Gold Seiko that had a day and date in the face, also railroad approved.  The silver one I gave to a son-in-law years ago but I wear the gold one to this day. Its Serial # 040246.  As a matter of fact, I just got it back from Seiko Mahwah, NJ. They rebuilt the whole thing for $175 and this should last another 50 years. I used my pocket watch at least 75% of my time out there, 

 If you have a RR Approved wrist watch, most people don't know this trick. When the wrist watch battery starts to fail, there is a built in warning. The second hand starts to pause only 2 to 3 times in 5 seconds. The watch doesn't lose any time but it tells you to get a new battery SAP.  I almost forgot to add, Seiko does a great job rebuilding a wrist watch. Only trouble is their shipping. They contract to the USPS and that was a bad move. My watch spent 6 days in NJ before heading to the west coast.  Only trouble was they sent it to Puerto Rico instead and it bounced around there for another 7 days days before it finally headed to Oregon.  Not good.


Nudge



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 11/05/16 18:53 by spnudge.

Citizen watches also say they are Railroad Approved and have the same end of battery protocol.

I've got both a Seiko which I bought when I hired out in 1978 (it cost me $200 back then) and a Citizen which I got for my 20 year award.-BMT

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When I first hired out in 1972 I got a Hamilton pocket watch, silver, because pocket watches were to me part of the railroad tradition. I used that watch for a few years until one day I banged my watch pocket really hard on the side of a car. There was no external damage evident but something broke inside as it stopped working. I used to go to the SP watch inspector who was located about a block or so from the 3rd & Townsend station in SFO for inspections and in this case a repair. When I got my watch back a few days later all repaired he explained I broke one of the jewels inside the watch mechanism. Even in the mid-70's parts for pocket watches were getting very hard to find, especially jewels. In fact many parts, especially jewels, had to be cannibalized from other broken watches. So when he gave me my pocket watch back he also admonished me to get a wrist watch instead and put my pocket watch away as next time it broke he might not be able to fix it. ​I went out and got a Bulova Accutron, which I used for many years, and eventually changed to a Seiko. I still have that pocket watch, plus a second Hamilton, and still have my watch cards for each.

When I hired out, I used my late great-grandfather's Hamilton pocket watch, made in 1904. WP didn't pursue watch inspection compliance until about1980. Suddenly, we all had to get watch cards and found that many of the listed inspectors didn't want to deal with it because we "weren't SP" (at least that's what I was told in a couple of places). I finally talked an inspector in Roseville into looking at my watch, but he was rather dubious about it. Geez, I was paying him directly after all, not trying to get him to bill my employer. Anyway, not long after, I was working a San Jose Turn with the "Fab Four" F-units. I leaned back in the seat and my watch fell out of my pocket onto the floor, putting a small crack in the crystal. It then occured to me that I shouldn't be exposing this antique to daily hazards. I purchased a RR-approved wristwatch and have used them ever since. 

My first RR watch was/is a Hamilton 992B which my uncle, Calvin Walker gave me when he retired from the Pacific Electric in 1961. I remember the
​movement number to this day: 1631855. Did a little research once and found that it was made in the 1920's. It has a Montgomery dial where every minute
has a number. It now lives in a safe deposit box at the bank. When the Bulova Accutron came out I bought one but managed to drop it one day on concrete
and it never was the same. Next was a Ball wristwatch that was so-so. I then bought a gold plated Seiko but it showed its age by having the gold plating wear thin.
Then I got another Seiko from the BN in 1984, stainless with the BN logo on the dial. Interesting story how the BN came to 'give' me that.
It keeps great time; 32 years and counting. Never have had it cleaned, just a couple of batteries over the years. That reminds me, gotta set the watch back an hour tonight!

Charlie

Somewhat more than fifteen years ago, Amtrak management on Caltrain decided to give us a safety award. Some of the stuff that SP handed out in the past was pretty good, in particular an Oregon Division coat that I wore for 25 years before accidentally leaving it on an engine. But this was Amtrak.

We employes were generally non-plussed when we heard that the award was a pocket watch. Pretty generous, we thought. When we got them, we found otherwise. These were the proverbial Dollar Watch, anodized tinplate decorated with what resembled wild animals in their death throes*, if I remember correctly. They DID look gangbusters, though, assuming that you were a taxidermist standing at least ten feet away. By then, any garden variety Kmart digital watch was legal for railroad service, but these were obviously suspect in that regard, as they featured mechanical movements apparently stamped out of old steel beer cans. And they kept time as good as they looked. Mine was off by fifteen minutes the first day. Some of my peers reported their watches as arriving DOA. Others broke off the stems when they attempted to wind their watches for the first time.

Thus, we had the peculiar situation of a railroad handing out watches that clearly were "unapproved" in any sense of the word. I kept mine in my grip sorta "on prospect". This  paid off one day when the late Will Hastings, then a trainmaster, rode with me from San Francisco to San Jose. He was the perfect mark, as he tended to be a self-possessed, holier-than-thou type. About mid-route, after getting the highball and beginning to pull, I suddenly throttled down. Will, ever on top of things, shouted a query across the cab asking what I was doing. My answer was  something like, Jeeze Will, I don't know how it happened, but we left the station three minutes early. He retorted, No Ed, you're two minutes late, to which I rejoined, Will what kind of crappy watch are you using?, subsequently pulling out my dollar wonder with the comment, I'm using a company watch.

This was one of several rides that Will took with me that wound up stonily silent (on his part) as the result of a little shop talk.

Not long afterwards, I tried the same thing on the late Trainmaster Bob Bongiorno (ex SP engineer and eventual 50 year man). The result was that he turned the tables on me in circumstance that my personal dignity prevents me from describing. Bob was as sharp as they came.

On the spur of the moment, I elected to give my watch to Mountain View Mikey, rabid railfan and all around best buddy of engineers, who was a little touched in the head as the result of a motorcycle accident. I could be having the worst day of my life until I pulled into Mountain View to a happily grinning and waving Mikey: How ya doin' Ed? ALL RIGHT! (Present Caltrain engineers: How's Mikey doin'? ALL RIGHT?)

I mentioned this to my fellow engineer, the late Jim Canaris, with the lament that I wanted to give a watch away to my nephew, another big foamer. Jim  said, "He can have mine. What a piece of shit." Jim always got to the heart of things with brevity and clarity.

Maybe six months later, I discovered that one of our railfan new-hire A/C's - rookie A/C's were mostly foamers, except for the convicted felons - was disgusted that he had missed out on the watches. I decide to go to the source to get him one: an assistant superintendent that we called Bullwinkle. He actually wasn't a bad guy once you got to know him and he was very accommodating. He wouldn't admit it, but I think that he was the guy who selected the watches. At any rate,  he wisely kept them in his safe, for as we know railroad employes will steal the linoleum off of floors if it isn't sufficiently glued down. He opened the safe door... and it was absolutely loaded those worthless watches, dozens of them! It seems that many of my fellows were too proud to receive such crappy devices as awards, and had not yet got around to stealing one.

In summary, there surely are too many "late" employes these days.

EO

*late edit: I now have come to realize that the watches were actually in fact decorated with a railroad motif.. that resembled wild animals in their death throes. There's obviously some sort of symbolic meaning here.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 11/06/16 09:40 by hogheaded.

You would be surprised how many officers kept safety awards for themselves.  I remember the field glasses, kept a pair in my grip. Hats, jackets, coffe bottles, etc. I knew a brakeman that needed a new lantern going to work about 1:00 AM.  The clerk gave them the key to the TMs office and he came back with a stack of SP safety award hats. He said there was a whole case behind the TMs desk.  Nobody had received any at these in the terminal and nobody ever did.  Don't know what the TM did with the rest of them. I knew a few that put themselves in for "Eagle Eye Awards" when it was an employee that discovered the problem. I was told along with the "Award" that the employee was to go out to dinner with his wife and give the bill to the officer and he would remburse him.  I got two of those awards but never a free meal or anything else. My fireman and I found a broken center casting on a locomotive one trip and set the engine out on line for repair. I later found out the officer claimed he had found it and got the award.

Then again, the old school RFEs and Trainmasters were mostly honorable men back then.  Then the "Stanford Grads" showed up and steam heated tests and peoples PRs.  And so it goes.


Nudge

spnudge Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> You would be surprised how many officers kept
> safety awards for themselves.  I remember the
> field glasses, kept a pair in my grip. Hats,
> jackets, coffe bottles, etc. I knew a brakeman
> that needed a new lantern going to work about 1:00
> AM.  The clerk gave them the key to the TMs
> office and he came back with a stack of SP safety
> award hats. He said there was a whole case behind
> the TMs desk.  Nobody had received any at these
> in the terminal and nobody ever did.  Don't know
> what the TM did with the rest of them. I knew a
> few that put themselves in for "Eagle Eye Awards"
> when it was an employee that discovered the
> problem. I was told along with the "Award" that
> the employee was to go out to dinner with his wife
> and give the bill to the officer and he would
> remburse him.  I got two of those awards but
> never a free meal or anything else. My fireman and
> I found a broken center casting on a locomotive
> one trip and set the engine out on line for
> repair. I later found out the officer claimed he
> had found it and got the award.
>
> Then again, the old school RFEs and Trainmasters
> were mostly honorable men back then.  Then the
> "Stanford Grads" showed up and steam heated tests
> and peoples PRs.  And so it goes.
>
>
> Nudge

It's not just the railroad industry that this is happening in...

I used a Seiko for most of my career.  It stopped while it was still under warranty and they replaced the works.  Then it worked fine until I retired in 2000.  I also have a Hamilton 992B pocket watch that I bought from an ATSF engineer.  It was used but seemed to work OK.  I just wanted to have one for a keepsake.  He told me how to set it so I never had a problem with that.  Someone must have cross threaded the front cover at some time because you have to get it in just the right place to put it back on right.  I also got one of those 20 year awarded Citizen watches that had a face like a Seiko.  I'm still using that since my Seiko finally  wore out.  The Hamilton had trouble too.  I had to replace the main spring and something to do with the stem.  I think I have more money in it than it would have cost to buy another one.  I'll just leave it to my kids.  I gave one of them a tiffany dress watch that I got for retirement.  I'll give the other one the Hamilton.

CRS

I still carry my 1920 Illinois Bunn Special to work every day.  My back up is a 1948 Elgin BW Raymond. 
Please excuse the fuzzygraph...

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Earlk Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I still carry my 1920 Illinois Bunn Special to
> work every day.  My back up is a 1948 Elgin BW
> Raymond. 
> Please excuse the fuzzygraph...

​Your Illinois has a Montogomery dial that I wrote of earlier. The 'Bunn Special' was the name of the case. Apparently movements could be changed
from one case to another. My Hamilton 992B also sits inside a Bunn Special case. I think the BW Raymond is another example of different cases available in the 'day'.
​I'm curious about the stem of your watch. What is the purpose of the smaller knurled ring that sits below the top ring? Do they move independently?
​As Nudge pointed out,  all railroad 'approved' 21 jewel pocket watches had to be lever-set which requires removal of the crystal to gain access. I also wonder
​about the 'font' of the numerals. My Hamilton is not as fancy as yours. Nice looking watch. Thanks for showing it to us.
​Also, I like your BLF&E fob. My first union.

​Charlie



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/09/16 15:33 by cewherry.

I started out firing with a couple of pocket watches, both carded. One was a new, unused left over Waltham Vanguard 23j, adjused for 8 positions, Montgomery dial. I bought it from a watch vollector. The other was a 21j Illinois "Santa Fe Special". Still have them both today. Later, in the early 80's, I bought a used Bulova Accutron 214, with two hour hands, one red, one black, for use in two time zones. I bought it used at Holloway's in Emporia, KS, the local time inspector. It had been traded in by George Guthrie, our RFE at the time. It was the best time keeped I've ever owned. But, I gave it up when they quit making batteries for it. The originals had mercury in them, and would kill fish if they ate them. After the requirement for RR approved watched went away, I started using a stainless Rolex Explorer ll, since I kinda collect them anyway. Nice watches, but never owned one that didn't run fast.

Posted from Android

cewherry Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Earlk Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > I still carry my 1920 Illinois Bunn Special to
> > work every day.  My back up is a 1948 Elgin BW
> > Raymond. 
> > Please excuse the fuzzygraph...
>
> ​Your Illinois has a Montogomery dial that I
> wrote of earlier. The 'Bunn Special' was the name
> of the case. Apparently movements could be
> changed
> from one case to another. My Hamilton 992B also
> sits inside a Bunn Special case. I think the BW
> Raymond is another example of different cases
> available in the 'day'.
> ​I'm curious about the stem of your watch. What
> is the purpose of the smaller knurled ring that
> sits below the top ring? Do they move
> independently?
> ​As Nudge pointed out,  all railroad 'approved'
> 21 jewel pocket watches had to be lever-set which
> requires removal of the crystal to gain access. I
> also wonder
> ​about the 'font' of the numerals. My Hamilton
> is not as fancy as yours. Nice looking watch.
> Thanks for showing it to us.
> ​Also, I like your BLF&E fob. My first union.
>
> ​Charlie

The Illinois has "Bunn Special" on the movement.  That is is its model name.  It's a 21 jewel, adjust to temperature and 6 positions like all RR approved movements.  The case is a Keystone J.Boss 10ct gold filled case.  I once got to look through an old Keystone Watch Case catalog.  This case was referred to as the "Mainline Model".  The knurled bit below the winding stem is part of the case and is there just to look cool.  The fob and chain are very special to me.  They were given (I prefer to call it "loaned") to me by a retired D&RGW engineer who was also the local BLF&E chairman in Alamosa, CO. I love the gothic numerals on the Montgomery Dial.  It is very unusual.  I have never seen one exactly like it.  Illinois seems to have been the only one that did that.

The movement on my Elgin states it is a "Elgin 571 - B.W.Raymond" 21 jewels, 8 adjustments. It dates from the 1940's and has that classic art-deco case that most BW Raymonds of that era had.  It too has a Keystone J.Boss 10k gold filled case, with the added inscription stating it is "Cased and Timed my Elgin National Watch Co."

From what I have read, way back then when a watch was ordered from the manufacturer, you ordered the movement, dial and case as seperate items.  The manufacturer of the movement had a few different dial options: single, double or triple sunk (my Illinois is triple sunk, the Elgin double sunk, referring to the "levels" on the face), standard or Montgomery dial, etc.  Then you chose the case from a different list.  BW Raymonds of the "art deco" era were one of the few that seemed to come as a complete unit.

The charm on the chain is a 1903 Indian Head penny I got when I was running K-27 463 in Chama.

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Great information about these beauties. I guess I'm going to have to stop by the bank and bring mine home to look at it again.
​When I hired out in 1962, Fitzjohn's our local jeweler which was a SP authorized inspector still had a couple of new pocket watches
​in his display case. Seems like the price was around $120 for a gold filled case. Been kicking myself ever since for not forking over
​the cost but that was pricey back then, besides I already had my Hamilton so I really couldn't see the point of having two of them. Wrong.

​Charlie

Bunn Special refers to the name of the family that owned Illinois Watch co.  They were the Bunn Family.  Illinois also made quite a few "specialty" watches,  the 'Santa Fe Special' being the most common.  However there are fairly common "Burlington Special",  and "Illinois Central Special" watches out there also.   There is even at least one known "Colorado Midland Special".

 

Yeah I missed out on our family watch. My great-grandfather was a passenger conductor with L&N and my mom uncle could have either some family trunk or the watch. Well my mother chose the trunk. So I missed that one.

Any idea where one could get a new manufacture lever set pocket watch that aren't stupid expensive? Or should I get a used one?

cdrapollo20 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Any idea where one could get a new manufacture lever set pocket watch that aren't stupid expensive?

Hamilton was the last mechanical railroad approved pocket watch manufacturer in the US. I'm not sure when it actually stopped making parts for inventory (early 1960s, maybe?), but the last 992Bs and 950Bs were assembled from existing inventory in 1970.

It's been a while since I looked in a watch case at a store, but the only pocket watches I remember seeing are inexpensive ones using electronic movements.

It's pretty easy to find a good Hamilton 992B on eBay if you're patient and look closely at the listings. Over 500,000 were manufactured, and they keep great time (mine varies just a few seconds a week).

Many of the 992B listings are 992B movements with the wrong hands, dial and/or case. They aren't valuable to collectors, and I wouldn't pay more than $175 or so for one of these (because you can get a 'correct' 992B for $200), but it will keep good time when cleaned and adjusted. Here's an example:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Hamilton-992-B-Pocket-Watch-/192024197296?hash=item2cb588b8b0:g:s2AAAOSw44BYJOIK

The 992B movement dates to approximately 1946, and the dial is appropriate, but:

the hour and minute hands are from a 992B, but that particular movement probably originally had blued hands.
the second hand is wrong.
the case is a generic non-Hamilton case from before the mid-1920s. 

If you prefer a 'correct' 992B movement with the appropriate dial, hands and case, and ideally all-original (i.e. it hasn't been assembled from several different watches), you'll want to learn which dials (there were several available), hands (blue or black, depending on the year of manufacture), and cases are appropriate to the year the movement was manufactured or assembled. Lots of resources here:

http://ihc185.infopop.cc/eve/forums/a/frm/f/254108073 

http://mb.nawcc.org/forumdisplay.php?11-American-Pocket-Watches

Here is an example of a correct early production 992B:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Hamilton-992B-21-Jewel-Railway-Special-Pocket-Watch-1941-with-Hamilton-case-/302136013558?hash=item4658b5b2f6:g:IpIAAOSwFe5X1g84

536 porcelain double-sunk dial
blued hands 
the model 11 case is one of two introduced with the 992B in 1940 (the other is the model A)

later production (the 'silver' and 'gold' watches mentioned earlier):

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Antique-Hamilton-992B-Railway-Special-pocket-watch-1953-Stainless-steel-case-/222313111725?hash=item33c2e4e0ad:g:ZBwAAOSw8w1X8q46

http://www.ebay.com/itm/HAMILTON-16S-992B-21J-RAILROAD-POCKET-WATCH-IN-A-MODEL-16-10KT-R-G-P-CASE-/252616212405?hash=item3ad1197fb5:g:wsIAAOSw4GVYGR5Z

These watches have less expensive cases (stainless model 15, and gold-filled model 16) introduced in 1948 and sold until the end, and melamine dials instead of porcelain.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 11/16/16 07:46 by johnacraft.

Never wore this one, I got it when I retired from BNSF in Dec. 2010. It's still in the box, and I just noticed the battery finally ran down, I need to get it out of there before it corrodes.

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Funny timing, my 1980 Seiko is going in the mail tomorrow to Mahwah NJ for Seiko to freshen it up. 
I used it every day from then until 2006 when I retired.
I has kept me right on track and time on Hy Rail trips from New Orleans to about San Jose and Stockton.
But it got a lot of scratches to the point the crystal is almost obscure.
It replaced an Accutron, which could occasionally be stopped by a sharp rap on the wrist or a strong magnetic field (as with arc welders).
Thanks to all for posting.