[geeks] Watch prescision

[James]

At 10:09 AM 1/22/2003 -0700, you wrote:
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: geeks-bounces at sunhelp.org
> > [mailto:geeks-bounces at sunhelp.org] On Behalf Of James
> > Sent: Wednesday, January 22, 2003 09:04
> >
> >
> > Not long after the turn of the century (the last century) railroads
> > required a watch to keep within 5 seconds a week (or some
> > high value like
> > that). There were actual specifications for the watches that
> > Operations
> > Department personnel were allowed to carry. 21 Jewel, 5
> > seconds/week and
> > the lever used to actuate a time change must be concealed and
> > cannot be the
> > little winding knob (that thing has a name but I forget what
> > it is). Each
> > road set up their own standards, the one I quote is Boston &
> > Maine, 1932
> > Operations Department Trainman's Rulebook.

BTW, the trainman's rulebook had a long discussion on what we would call 
NTP "stratum". Who you could get time from (which was based on who you 
were, ie: job title), how they would get time, how to ascertain that their 
clock has been adjusted recently, what to do if it hasn't been adjusted and 
who to go to for your next stratum, etc. It was like 5 pages and even 
discussed averaging a group of clocks if nobody had synced recently and no 
in-sync timesource was available.