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One hundred and thirty years ago, the railroad industry changed time

Francisco Miraval

One hundred and thirty years ago, on November 18, 1883, railroad companies in the United States and Canada changed time. In fact, a century and almost a third after that decision, we are still following the time established by the railroad industry, a time now globalized, even if we never step inside a railroad car.

At 12 noon on November 18, 1883, railroad operators in the United States and Canada adopted what we now call “time zones.” For centuries before that, each city and each region had their own local time. It is said that there were thousands of local times in the United States alone. Therefore, it was difficult to know at what time a train would arrive to a certain city.

Following to the expansion of railroads in the United States and Canada and to avoid the confusion created by the existence of so many local times, railroad companies decided to create their own “time code,” without the intervention of their respective federal governments (a clear indication of the power of those companies.)

Later, in 1918, the U.S. Congress finally adopted the use of time zones as the law of the country. Other governments did the same thing and time zones became so common we don’t even think about them, except when we want to call somebody on the other side of the world or when we want to see a soccer match from another continent.

In fact, the railroad companies were so influential that during the first few years after the implementation of the time zones, the new time was known as “railroad time.”

At 12 noon on November 18, 1883, all the train conductors in the United States and Canada synchronized their watches with the new system, and not, as before, with the local time of each city and even each station. (Time was measured according to the position of the sun at noon at each given place.)

Soon afterwards, business people began to use “railroad time” to open and close their stores. And public clocks were also synchronized with the new time zones. Eventually, time zones expanded to the whole world.

In just a few short years, the old idea of measuring time according to the apparent movement of the sun was abandoned to be replaced by measuring time according to the interests of a powerful industry. The sun was replaced by the “iron horse,” and local time was replaced by impersonal, mechanical time.

In other words, the natural time, that is, the time based on nature, and therefore a time that varies from place to place and from season to season, was replaced by a mechanical, lineal, efficient, and commercially-friendly time. The natural time became unnatural, and vice versa.

I wonder in what ways the powerful industries of our time are already changing our perception and experience of time and nature for the own sake and benefit. What kind of time is replacing railroad time? And what industries are powerful enough to do it?

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