I know the accuracy of watches in railroad service had to be certified periodically by the company's timekeeper. How was this done, especially in the days before electronic timing equipment? Were the watches kept by the company for several days while the accuracy was being checked? If they remained in the posession of their owners, how was cheating prevented?

A friend of mine explained this is how the RR he worked for check the accuracy of watches in the day!!

How did the RRs certify the timekeeping ability on a watch. That was what the time card was for. It was not so much a certification as it was simply comparing your watch to one that had been timed to the standard clock within the last hour or so. An official would sync his watch to the standard clock, then come up to you and compare time. He would write the difference in seconds on the back of the card, and when you had filled up the available space (12 lines or so - depended on who the regulatory agency was), you could put in a watch inspection claim that would net you an extra dollar on your next paycheck. If your watch was in for repair, you would be carrying a loaner watch with a loaner card. When you got your watch back, any time comparisons you had incurred with the loaner would be transferred over to your regular card. That way you would get credit for all time checks even though you may not have been carrying your regular watch at the time of the check. Usually, you got checked about 1 or 2 times a month, sometimes more if you were in the terminal a lot, or less if you worked a local at an outlying station where no officials worked on a regular basis. I have compared time with a dispatcher over the telephone while having my train orders sent to me at the printer address of the outlying termnal, but those don't count for the dollar because they could not be sight-verified.

Back in the day there were mechanical timing machines that used a pendulum as a time standard. This was what the watchmaker used to set the beat of the watch escapement.

They printed out a strip of paper similar to what you get today. My former watchmaker had one, a Vibrograph. They're all electronic today of course, but 100 years ago they were mechanical.

There's generations old jewelery store on the square in Murfreesboro, TN that had one of the old Vibrograph machines.

Several years ago I walked in with my Burlington 12s 21j and asked if the watchmaker could check the timing of my watch.

I thought the man was going to kiss me! He was absolutely tickled to death to be able to use his old machine to check my watch, as he said all he ever got those days were requests for quartz battery replacements. NO one ever came in with mechanical watches, let alone wanting one to be in beat for carry.

I left my watch with him for a couple hours, and he showed me the tape he ran on my watch, and explained how the machine worked and the adjustments he made to my watch.

I believe the man has since passed on, but the store is there, and his son is still running the business. I wonder if he still has that old timing machine, let alone know how it works?

Regards! Mark