What is a Railroad Watch?

Many folks inaccurately describe any watch that is old as a "Railroad Watch".

The term "Railroad Watch" or "Standard Watch" can be traced back to the late 1880's. The most famous incident, the straw that broke the camel's back, occured on April 19th, 1891. A fast mail train known as No. 4 traveling east on the same track as an accomodation train was going West. Unfortunately the engineer's watch on the accomodation train had stopped for 4 minutes, and then started up again. The two trains met their destiny at Kipton, Ohio, where both engineers were killed, along with nine others.

Following the disaster, a commission was appointed to come up with standards for timepieces that would be adopted by all railroads. The industry now had to demand precision in its timekeeping. Thus were born some of the finest timepieces ever made in the world!!! The General Railroad Timepiece Standards were adopted by most railroads in 1893. They had to meet the following standards:

A railroad watch had to be open faced, size 16 or 18, have a minimum of 17 jewels, adjusted to at least five positions, keep time accurately to within 30 seconds a week, adjusted to temps of 34 - 100F, have a double roller, steel escape wheel, lever set, winding stem at 12 o'clock, and have bold black arabic numerals on a white dial.

After WW2, the requirements were tightened up to 21 jewels on some lines.

Therefore, just because it is old, does not mean it is a Railroad Watch, just a good old Antique watch!

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