"On Time Watches Run On Time Trains"

[John F]

Here is a link to the October 1931 issue of The Frisco Employes' Magazine (http://thelibrary.springfield.missouri.org/lochist/frisco/magazines/fem%5F1931%5F10/fem%5F1931%5F10.pdf), a monthly publication of the old Frisco Rail Line. On pages 6 & 7 there is a short article titled "On Time Watches Run On Time Trains," which is about the Frisco line's time service inspection records (more of a puff piece than a technical discussion of time service requirements). But, it has yet another spin on the event that precipitated tighter time standards in the US - not Kipton, but an unnamed 1867 wreck. The source for the story is given as O.J. Poupeney, assistant general time inspector of the Ball Railroad Time Service Co. Poupeney credits his boss, Webb Ball (who who have been barely 20 at the time), with investigating the accident at the behest of the rail company's president.

[John F]

Here is a link to the October 1931 issue of The Frisco Employes' Magazine (http://thelibrary.springfield.missouri.org/lochist/frisco/magazines/fem%5F1931%5F10/fem%5F1931%5F10.pdf), a monthly publication of the old Frisco Rail Line. On pages 6 & 7 there is a short article titled "On Time Watches Run On Time Trains," which is about the Frisco line's time service inspection records (more of a puff piece than a technical discussion of time service requirements). But, it has yet another spin on the event that precipitated tighter time standards in the US - not Kipton, but an unnamed 1867 wreck. The source for the story is given as O.J. Poupeney, assistant general time inspector of the Ball Railroad Time Service Co. Poupeney credits his boss, Webb Ball (who who have been barely 20 at the time), with investigating the accident at the behest of the rail company's president.

[Kent]

Hi John:

Thanks for bringing this to light. The information on the (then) current practice was interesting and I'll be capturing it for my files. However, I've got a real problem with the historical portion of the article. The mention of engineers using an alarm clock sound like it came right out of the James Morrow 1910 interview with Ball, when Ball was discussing the Kipton wreck.

[John F]

I got a chuckle out of that, too, Kent - especially the image of a "hall clock" in the engineer's cab.

What I find interesting in the popular accounts is the tendency to key off of a single event (whether it's Kipton or some other calamity) as "the" reason behind time service requirements - sort of a "before X happened, there was nothing, but after X, there was a system in place to prevent it" notion. Certainly wrecks had their place in the development of standards, but the popular accounts pretty well gloss over the longer evolution of railway time standards.

[Kent]

As near as I can determine, all of the "popular accounts" that name the "X" event as the beginning of time service rules can be believed to possibly have come from the 1910 Morrow interview and that the "x" event always seems to be a garbled form of the Kipton wreck.

The fact is that watch inspection and certification, and even the requirement for loaner watches, is documented as far back as 1853. The significant element that Ball added was regular comparision with the watch inspector's standard clock.