\n
People
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n At
<\/p>\n Eventually,
<\/p>\n The
<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n The
<\/p>\n By
<\/p>\n Standardizing
<\/p>\n In
<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n We
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n We
<\/p>\n Railway
<\/p>\n
\n<\/p>\n \n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" People nowadays have the exact time at their fingertips, so they are taking it for granted<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":127,"featured_media":89855,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[41141],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-131299","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-history-show"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n
\nnowadays have the exact time at their fingertips, so they are taking
\nit for granted. We are surrounded by clocks of all kinds, and it is
\nalmost impossible to not know what time it is at any given moment.
\nHowever, exact time has its own history. In this case, exact time is
\nclosely tied to the emergence of railways, and is as fascinating as
\nany other major idea. We are influenced a lot by the most ordinary of
\nideas and objects without even realizing it. Exact time and railways
\nwere introduced alongside each other, around the mid-19th
\ncentury. Trains
\nappeared in 1830 in England, and Dorin Stanescu told us that this was
\nEngland’s gift to the world:<\/span><\/p>\n
\nthe moment when railways appeared in England, the English found that
\nthey had a problem on their hands. We have to say very clearly that
\nEurope discovered speed in the mid-19th century. When
\nrailways appeared, traffic was reduced, and railways had a single
\ntrack. However, once traffic increased, it brought with it a big
\nproblem, that of synchronizing the clocks on trains, because the
\nabsence of that led to a lot of accidents with a lot of victims.<\/p>\n
\nthe English found a solution. Dorin Stanescu told us about it:<\/span><\/p>\n
<\/span><\/p>\n
\nfirst solution was proposed in 1840 by English captain Basil Hall,
\nwho suggested that the entire country use the time in London. His
\nidea was successful initially, but the postal services did not agree.
\nHowever, railways proved to be a revolutionary institution in the
\n19th century, and people quickly understood that this was
\nthe proper solution. The Great Western Railway company, starting in
\nNovember 1840, introduced a uniform exact time for its trains. Their
\nproposal was for the time in London, provided by the Greenwich
\nobservatory, to be used uniformly by railway companies.<\/p>\n
\nRomanian space, in a mad rush to modernize and be more like Europe,
\nadopted quickly everything coming from the West. Dorin Stanescu told
\nus that the English model was adopted without reservations:
\n<\/p>\n
\n1896, railways became a common sight in the Romanian landscape. As
\nhappened everywhere in the world, it brought with it a single exact
\ntime all across the territory, along with a system to synchronize it.
\nIn Romania, they used the English model, setting everyone’s time by
\nthe time in Bucharest. Up until 1890, Romania had only a few tracks
\nand trains every day, with little danger of accidents. After 1893,
\nFrance, Germany, and Austria-Hungary unified their time system, which
\nalso started being adopted in Romania. Adopting the time in
\nBucharest, based on the Greenwich mean time, was achieved by two
\ninstitutions: the Romanian Railroads and the Romanian Meteorological
\nInstitute. The father of unified time in Romania was Stefan Hepites,
\nthe head of the institute.<\/p>\n
\ntime telling was done at first in order to avoid tragedies, then came
\nintroducing standards in institutions. Here is Dorin Stanescu:<\/span><\/p>\n
<\/span><\/p>\n
\norder to measure time, a special room with a telescope was built in
\n1892, as in other countries. Stefan Hepites was sent by the
\ngovernment to Germany to study their system of standardizing time.
\nOne of the initial solutions proposed by Hepites was to announce
\nstandard time every day at noon with a cannon shot. This experiment
\nwas a failure. This happened in 1895. They gave up the practice,
\nbecause the cannon could not be heard all across the city. The
\nsolution, introduced in September 1895, was a direct telegraph line
\nwas set up between Filaret Railway Station and the Meteorological
\nInstitute. Every day at noon the institute would transmit the exact
\ntime, which was then telegraphed to every railway stations in the
\ncountry. After that, this mechanism was adopted by the postal service
\nand other institutions of the state. By 1900, the entire country was
\ntuned in to Bucharest time. This is the moment when they came up with
\nthe slogan: Railway time is the country’s time.<\/p>\n
\nasked Dorin Stanescu how telling time with precision changed people’s
\nlives and the way in which railways functioned:
\n<\/p>\n
\nfind a lot of mentions about exact time and its impact on everyday
\nlife for Romanians in literature. In some of the first novels, Manoil
\nand Elena by Bolintineanu, we find information about exact time. Then
\nwe go from Nicolae Filimon’s ‘Old and New Nouveau Riche’ to
\nCaragiale’s sketches. In 1899, the latter wrote a sketch that centers
\non telling exact time.<\/p>\n
\nstations started putting up clocks for the public, essential staff
\nwere given pocket watches, and trains and railways became a reference
\npoint. Up until 1950, the exact time was provided in the country by
\nthe national railway company, and after that, this mission was
\nrelegated to public radio.<\/span><\/p>\n