The fact is that the great and wonderful American railroad watch is a very specific kind of pocket watch, and the story of how it came into being begins with a crash. That crash happened one day in April, 1891, outside Cleveland, Ohio.
At the Elyria station, 25 miles outside the city, a telegraph operator warned the conductor of a westbound accommodation train (passengers and freight), “Be careful, Number 14 (an eastbound mail train) is on time.”
According to the subsequent inquiry, that conductor responded, “Go to thunder. I know my business!”
What that conductor didn’t know was that his watch had stopped for four minutes, but had resumed working before he had checked it. And he was so confident, that he didn’t synchronize his time with then engineer, which he should have done.
By the time the conductor was approaching the town of Kipton, he realized his mistake and put his accommodation train on full brakes. But the mail train, thinking it had the right of way, was coming at full speed.
Both engineers and six postal workers were killed. The material losses of two the both railroads (The Lake Shore and the Michigan Southern) were, by today’s standards, enormous.
Immediately after this tragedy, several railroads, the Illinois Central, specifically, began requiring periodic inspections of their crews’ watches, and setting standards for their timepieces.
In 1893, The General Railroad Timepiece Standards Commission set the standards for a railroad watch, and those standards are what generally determine the definition of a railroad watch on today’s antiques market.
According to that commission, a railroad watch had to be open-faced (no case cover), be a size 18 or 16 (about one and two-thirds inches), have a minimum of 17 jewels, be accurate within a gain or loss of 30 seconds a week, and adjust to temperatures of 30 to 100 degrees Fahrenheit.
The railroad watch also had to have a white face with plain Arabic numbers (no Roman numerals), boldly printed in black, and black hands.
The winding stem had to be at 12 o’clock and the time was lever set, that is: to set the watch you had to remove the crystal and its surrounding bezel, push a lever (positioned around 2 or 3 o’clock on the face), set the hands at the proper time, push the lever back, and reattach the crystal.
There were also some technical standards required of a railroad watch that only a watchmaker or repairer would understand. For instance, the watch had to have a double roller, steel escape and micrometric regulator.
All these standards were created to insure an accurate, fail-safe watch that would help prevent accidents on American railways.
The assured quality of the railroad watch also made it popular among those who didn’t work on the railroad, and still makes it a favorite of today’s collectors.
Waltham, Hamilton, Ball and Elgin were among the chief manufacturers of railroad watches. The last American-made railroad watch was made by Hamilton in 1969.
Prices for old railroad watches can be as low as $70 on up to about $500 or more, depending on the overall quality and condition.
—Arthur Schwerdt, a certified appraiser, is the author of “The Antique Story Book: Finding the Real Value of Old Things, and co-owner of The August Farmhouse Antiques on Route 9 in Swainton.
