What is your favorite "railroad approved watch?" - Trains Magazine
1) What, if any, are official railroad rules on watch synchronization with external time services or servers? (For example, via the Internet to a stratum 2 or 1 server, or to WWV via radio)?
2) What are official railroad rules regarding digital displays (as opposed to analog hands/Arabic numbers) *on pure battery watches*? [Note that this point is intended to rule out objections to the watch 'going blank' vs. just stopping when battery power runs low]
3) What, if any, is the procedure used for transit through time zones? I haven't yet seen a 'railroad-approved' quartz watch model with multiple hour hands (e.g., the "Fort Wayne" hour hand (thanks, Art, for the name) on some 16s railroad watches), nor have I seen a railroad model with a 'jumper' for the hour hand, which would permit easy time changes without stopping the timing function of the watch.
I bring this up because, with the impending 'completeness' of NDGPS, it becomes practical to conduct automatic time-zone changes on watches -- as well as chronometric functions built into locomotives, etc.
Active railroaders: would an automatic time-zone change be valuable, or not? How would you want to be informed (by the watch) when it is changing or has changed a zone? Likewise, how would you want the watch to handle daylight-saving changes (or the lack thereof in Arizona!) automagically?
With respect to you older pocket-watch owners: Be aware that one of the reasons for the 'switch' to Elinvar hairsprings (circa the early '40s) on railroad watches was the perceived effect of main-generator (and other) fields in diesel-electric locomotives on the balance. (The effect, of course, is small, and might easily constitute a marketing ploy -- a follow-on to the golden age of 'smokestack jewels', perhaps -- rather than an objective measure. Some evidence out there that at least on certain railroads the use of magnetic hairsprings was out of favor with dieselization...
With respect to pocket watches, I've always liked Hamilton and Illinois, but oddly enough my principal "carry" watch is a Vanguard with up/down (fitted with a NOS Ball-Waltham replacement nonmagnetic balance and upper/lower balance jewels). For 'practical' pocket watches, I'd give the nod to the early Ball-Records... why? Attention to the details that matter, most particularly use of Incabloc shock protection on the escape and first wheels as well as the balance. That told me that the designers were concerned with real-world situations...
I've always somewhat mistrusted the 'tuning-fork' Accutrons, because they're relatively sensitive to cumulative position error. For example, if you wear an Accutron on the inside of your wrist, it can gain or lose up to 2 seconds a day relative to the same watch on the outside... note that the same effect may apply if you hold or rest your wrist for long periods of time in a position other than that in which the watch was originally timed. Again -- not that this is critical compared to overall timing, but some people think that their "accurate" watch may not need as frequent checking against a time standard.
I used to point out that the cheapest 32,767Hz quartz watch made can be certified as a Swiss chronometer in precision, and is likely to be more accurate as well (remember that ship chronometers are extremely precise but not accurate; you have to calculate the cumulative deviation to know 'what time it is', which isn't exactly what railroaders want to bother with!)
