While searching for watch inspectors I ran across this article about the H.S. Montgomery dial, I thought I would post it for anyone interested.

It is from the March 6, 1921 Sandusky Register Sandusky Ohio. Hopefully you can read it.

Tom

1st part

2nd part

Last part

Well~Well Mr. Montgomery sure had a sales pitch, almost like a certain ebay seller
This so called "safety dial" designed by Montgomery is a very poor and difficult to read dial ESPECIALLY in the low~light, no~light, and available~light situations that confronted train crews and military operations where lives and equipment was and is of the greatest importance. Spending a career manning the nations RR's, I know first hand how difficult this dial would have been to read and at best you would of had to take a long look or several looks to make sure of the exact time as this dial does not register on the brain That is why this marketed dial did not do well in sales and today it is quite a scarce item
I have only seen two in the past 10 years and I believe they were both Hamiltons
Also Montgomery said this dial should be adopted as the standard of the nation for its EDUCATIONAL VALUE, HUH I fail to see any value to a dial where the brain would have to be retrained to give you the time of day
Regards,
bb

Us railroaders tend to think alike. Once again, I'm with Buster on this.

In 30 some years of railroading I very rarely carried any of my watches with a Montgomery dial.

I would think the later Montgomery dial to be as easy to read as any normal type dial with the red minute markers. Where lighting or poor visible conditions would have existed would have been with the steamers and they were phased out in the late 50's over 60 years ago. If you have a bold 1-12 that is 5mm high on a white dial the fact it has smaller numbers instead of dash markers I am not sure how confusing that could be. An equal take is to be aware that by the mid 50's wristwatches were being used for RR service and if you can see a WW dial that is white and is about 30mm round and it was approved for use. I don't have any issues with regular or Montgomery style dial and compared to a WW dial a 16/18 size dial is like a barn door compared to a doggie door.

A standard Montgomery dial wasn't confusing to read in service. It just wasn't any better than a box car dial, which I prefer.

Wrist watches for railroad service were first adopted by the Pittsburgh and Lake Erie Railroad at the insistance of their progressive president John Barriger, in 1961. He stated that no one wore vests much anymore, and that standard trousers were more and more likely, at the time, to come without watch pockets.

Mitch I will have to dig into that a bit I was thinking that some RR companies were accepting WW types in the mid to late 50's since many of the watch companies were going out of business, by 1957 Waltham was gone so that left Hamilton(1969, American Production-little longer based on left over inventory) and Elgin(1964). Elgin didn't have the grade 730 BWR until the 60-61 range but seems that some wristwatches could be used prior to 1960 on some lines. I have only seen about 2-3 of the dials that Tom posted also. Appears to be in this order for wrist watches "Ball Watch Company" Swiss movement approved prior to the Elgin grade 730 (~61) and Bulova Watch Co. (~62).

Claude..Let us know what you come up with. My information came from an old railroad trade journal on the topic in '66.

Back in the day railroads were quite firm in their various ways. At the time I first hired out on the Chicago and North western one had to have 20/20 uncorrected vision to pass the first physical. The only way I passed, wearing glasses, was that the Vietnam War had severly depleted the supply of eligible candidates and the C&NW plus the Rock Island were the first to waive this rule. Eventually all other lines followed.

Sometimes you read something, it sticks but you can't remember where you read it. It appears that the Ball company made wrist watches as early as 1940 now when one of those models was approved I can't find any links to other than the Ball wristwatch was prior to the Elgin. Nope as far as I can find Ball was ~1960 so my recollection was off a few years. So it was Ball-1960, Elgin-1961, and Bulova-1962, Omega might have been in be in the same time as Bulova.

Tom, thanks for posting that article, really cool!BUT, I'm glad that first type Montgomery dial never took off, that's one ugly looking hard to read dial!I personally love a nice bold Montgomery dial, to me they are the ultimate RR dial, the 24 Hr. ones are even better, but I think Mitch is right, a box-car extra bold dial is every bit as easy, if not easier to read fast, even in poor light.The Waltham "Engineer" dial, and the Egin "49" dial were great looking non- Montgomery dials.Another really strange looking dial was the "Rate dial" by H.W. Copp of San Francisco, Ca.It's pictured on Pg. 89 #4 in Roy Ehrhardt's 1980 Indicator.It's an extra bold Roman dial with mileage& speed marked out in the outer track.Another idea that apparently never got popular.

The date a railroad wrist watch was first produced is different than the date said watch was first approved by a railroad for use. With the push for modernization in everything during the late fifties I figure watch manufacturers were preparing to have wrist watches approved.

Way back when the Montgomery dial was invented the operating picture of American railroads was quite different than it was to become only a decade later. The proliferation of automatic block signals and improved train order transmission minimalized, to a degree, the fear of miss-reading intermediate minutes.

An example of two types of train orders would be:

"Train 7 meet train 8 at Knox." With this train order in hand each of the named trains would not be able to pass Knox until the other train arrived. It could be modified to read:

"Train 7 meet train 8 at Knox and wait until 5.46am." With this train order train 7 would have to meet train 8 at Knox, but after 5.46am train 7 could proceed whether train 8 had arrived or not. Train 8's crew would have to figure their running time and know if they could make Knox with enough time to clear the opposing train. So in this instance of old time train orders establishing a schedule of sorts by the dispatcher, the correct reading of minutes was essential.

Mitch to Buster,over

My Brother Mitch
Train order territory
There were many different territories then and today. We ran mostly in CTC [thank goodness] but there was ABS, DTC, Dark Territory, and others.
Today most train order meets are simplified and I don't believe there are any more "time~wait" orders. It would be just " Train 7 meet train 8 at Knox." With the timed waits generally you had a 15 minute wait after train 8 failed to show at a designated time. Then you proceeded at "RESTRICTED SPEED" where you had to stop short of train 8 if you encountered him along the way and you could not exceed a speed of 15 mph at any time.
RR's as you said started allowing wrist watches at different times and was up to the Superintendant when they were accepted/allowed. My line, UPRR first allowed WW's in 1967.
I don't believe today that any watch is required at least not as to type, jewels, brands on my old line
I hope this is some help brother
regards,
bb

I can only state to my own practice. I carry pocket watches on a regular basis, and usually railroad approved versions.
I work in a dimly lit control room that most of the light only comes from my 17 monitors I use to produce distance education video classes.

I have a hard time reading any watches with a Montgomery dial. My usual carry is my 992B with boxcar style numbers. It's easy to read in the dark.

Other than the rumble, rock and roll of a locomotive deck, my lighting situation can't be much different than the cab of an engine. I've found that 'less is more' in ease of dial reading in this kind of situation.

Regards! Mark

Mitch I know the Elgin grades 7XX were available in the mid-late 50's in the Lord Elgin version and had the same level of adjustments the grade 730 had. I was a bit surprised not to find much show up about Hamilton RR wristwatches. If my father-in-law was still alive I could ask him what N&W did because he was the yardmaster at the Sandusky Ohio railyards. N&W (now NS) has a single line rail that runs north/south which I think connects in at the Bellvue yard bringing coal from from Va/WVA/TN etc up to the ore freighters. The N&W yard is just outside of Sandusky and spreads out then reconverges to a single track that goes to the ore boat docks. There is also a large East/West double track which I think is now NS but was Conrail at one time that runs through Sandusky toward Toledo crossing a the large bay are of the Fremont River right at Lake Erie.

Another aspect that changed in the early part of the last century was that coaches changed from gas illumination to electricity. Eventualy this came to the locomotive deck.

Buster, yes indeed, the standards for watches have changed from that of many specifications and proper models to, "A reliable watch." Which means as far as I've seen on the South Shore, anything that tells time, kind of. Such as digital watches that turn anyone's wrist to the "time-temperature sign" on your local bank.

"You can't tell these new kids anything." Ted "Chisel Chin" Carlisle, 1969 while depating on a wetbound extra.