Keeping the Railroads on Time

 

QUESTION: My grandfather worked as a conductor on the Pennsylvania Railroad. When he died some years ago, I inherited his pocket watch. For a long time, I thought it was just another old pocket watch. Then a friend, who’s father was a watch repairman, told me it was a special kind of pocket watch—a railroad pocket watch. Other than that, he didn’t know why it was so special. Can you give me some insight into antique and vintage railroad watches?

ANSWER: The answer to your question goes back to the last decade of the 19th century. On April 19, 1891, a train engineer's watch stopped for four minutes and then started again. This temporary mechanical failure resulted in a train wreck that killed nine people in Kipton, Ohio. The railroads set up a commission to create new standards for the railroad pocket watch, to be used by all railroads.

A railroad grade pocket watch was a watch that a particular railroad approved for use by its engineers and conductors. 

The Railroad Commission required every engineer to have his pocket watch inspected regularly and to submit a certificate stating its reliability to his supervisors. When there was only one track for trains barreling in both directions, being on time was a matter of life and death. As the Kipton wreck proved, an engineer's railroad watch being off by as little as four minutes could mean disaster.

The new standards dictated that a railroad pocket watch had to have at least 15 jewels. After 1886, the number of jewels increased. They also had to be accurate to within 30 seconds per week, as well as have a white dial—although the railroads allowed silvered dials until around 1910—with black Arabic numbers for each minute delineated; adjust to five positions, and be temperature compensated.

Although a pocket watch’s size, ranging from 0 to 23, didn’t refer to its width or length or casing but rather to the size of its movement, to meet railroad requirements, a watch's movement had to be either a size 16 (1 7/10 inches) or a size 18 (1 23/30inches).

Manufacturers sometimes broke the rules and made railroad watches with Roman numerals. The last two requirements were critical. As the early watchmakers discovered, not only could cold and heat cause a watch’s movement to slow or speed up, but so did the watch's position. Imagine a conductor trying to carry a watch in one position all the time, especially while working on a train. Railroad watches had to stand up to constant abuse from the jarring and swaying of early trains.

Contrary to common belief, there were many regulations in place before railroad officials commissioned Webb C. Ball to create a standard set of railroad watch qualifiers in the 1890’s. 

Before then, and until the entire railroad industry accepted Ball’s standards, different railroads had different standards for the watches their crews used. One line might have had a list of accepted makes and models while another might have only listed necessary features or timekeeping performance thresholds. This made evaluating older watches as railroad grade a difficult task, because a watch may have met the standards of one company but not another. 

As the rail industry grew in the United States, the number of active trains grew with it. In order to use a particular track efficiently, railroads had to create time schedules identifying when each section of that track was safe to use. The timekeeping accuracy of the engineer’s and conductor’s watches was crucial if two trains were moving in opposite directions. If one of the two engineers’ or conductors’ watches were keeping bad time, a collision could occur. Railroad watches became known as “standard” watches because they met a railroad’s standard of timekeeping.

Companies like Waltham, Elgin, and Hamilton made the “best” railroad watches after 1900. An important part of standard watch regulations included service intervals and testing, but there was also a list of features that almost all railroad watches shared. 

The most prominent feature of 1900’s railroad watches was their lever actuated setting mechanisms–commonly referred to as "lever-set.". Most watches were put in time-setting mode by pulling the crown, or winding knob, away from the watch, then pushing the crown back towards the watch to return to winding mode—referred to as "pendant-set."

A lever-set mechanism required the user to remove the bezel of the watch—the convex glass protecting the dial---and engage a lever to place the watch in setting mode. This tedious process of removing the bezel had a very important purpose. It ensured that the time on the watch was never accidentally changed by catching the winding knob on a pocket or any number of other unintentional situations.

Another important feature of railroad watches was their big, bold, black, Arabic numerals on highly contrasting white enamel dials with large bold hands. This feature made telling the time as clear and easy as possible while creating a distinctive and functional railroad watch design.

Mechanically speaking, almost all 1900’s railroad watches shared a number of performance and reliability enhancing features. Most had a fixed regulator to avoid timekeeping variation from impact, a double roller balance wheel to avoid going out of action, 19 or more jewels to reduce friction and increase consistency of the gear train, timekeeping adjustment in five or more positions to make sure the watch kept accurate time regardless of its orientation, and adjustment for temperature to ensure accuracy in a variety of climates. Many railroad watches had solid gold or gold plated gear trains and jewel settings to reduce the effects of magnetism as well as reduce tarnishing, and later watches had features such as magnetically resistant balance wheels.

Although there were many other fine pocket watches made in America, the quality of the workmanship made them second only to chronometers for being precise—they had to be.

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Beauty in a Little Box

QUESTION: My favorite aunt left me a beautiful metal jewelry box that looks like tarnished silver. It’s got daisies on it and on the bottom it’s marked “N.B. Rogers.” I know that Rogers Brothers is famous for its silver flatware, but did they also make jewelry boxes? Also, what can you tell me about the design of this box?

ANSWER: Sorry to burst your bubble, but your jewelry box isn’t made of silver. It’s actually white metal, also known as “Britannia” or art metal and dates from the first decade of the 20th century. And the flower on it is a lotus flower, not a daisy.

The creation of mail order catalogs by Marshall Field, Montgomery Ward, Sears, Roebuck and Company, and Macy's in the late 19th century made it possible for the average middle class woman to purchase lovely fashions and accessories at affordable prices.

One of these accessories was the jewelry box—more popularly called the jewel box—a repository for her most precious jewelry and keepsakes. The growth in popularity of these "art metal" jewel boxes, also called jewel caskets or jewel cases, paralleled the growth of catalog shopping which promoted them as ' dainty gifts for Milady." Jewel boxes came in sizes ranging from the smallest ring box to large handkerchief and glove boxes.

Between 1900 and 1910, Art Nouveau, a French term meaning "new art" coined by Maison de 1'Art Nouveau, a Paris gallery which opened in 1895, was the predominant design style in the United States. A romantic style influenced by the art forms of Japan, it used many motifs borrowed from nature, including flowers, leaves, vines, and birds. It also became known for its curves and asymmetrical elements. Of the Art Nouveau jewel boxes produced in the United States, those with the floral motifs were the most popular.

The two most prevalent flowers used on jewel boxes were roses and poppies. Daisies, four-leaf-clovers, lily of the valley, pond lilies, violets, carnations, and a myriad of other flowers also decorated jewel boxes. This maybe due, in part, to the important role flowers played during the Victorian era.

The jewelry trade promoted the “Flower of the Month” concept during the early 1900s. Fueled by consumers’ desire for more decorative objects, the jewelry industry improved production, distribution and marketing methods. Little by little, the role of flowers as a decorative motif became the central theme. Manufacturers assigned specific flowers to birth months, decorating jewel boxes with roses of love for June, carnations for admiration for February, and holly for foresight for December.

The interiors of these jewel boxes were as beautiful as their exteriors. Linings of fine silk, faille, jacquard, and satin gave them a luxurious appearance. Because silk could be easily dyed, it came in a rainbow of colors, although jewel box linings used the pale hues of pink, green, and blue. Manufacturers trimmed trimmed the linings with a fine twisted-silk cording.

During the early part of the 20th century, many American manufacturers produced art metal wares, with jewel boxes being one of their most popular items. Many of these manufacturers have long passed into history but one, Rogers Brothers, still exists today. There were several "Rogers" brothers in business at the turn of the century, and the name gained national recognition due, in large' part, to the wide distribution of mail order catalogs. The name became so popular that other companies tried to adopt it, results in many lawsuits. Though the original Rogers family became known for its flatware, one brother, N. Burton Rogers; founded his own art metal company and produced many Art Nouveau jewel boxes marked “N.B. Rogers.”.

By 1915, the popularity of art metal jewel boxes had reached its peak: With the coming of World War I, production slowed. The earlier naturalistic, yet interpretive Art Nouveau flowers, leaves, and vines, had become "conventional" floral decoration. By 1925, the production of art metal jewel boxes had ceased altogether.