My collection of railroad approved wristwatches
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Charlie Helming
Into dogs, motorcycles, cars, and classical music forever, watches recently.
Silverdale, WA, USA
Member since
Last active: 2 days ago
17.15 cm
Cool. I have had a few of these but I never learned what made them “Railroad Approved” - do you know?
Awesome theme!
Yes. In the 1870s the railroads adopted standards for watches used by their personnel in the aftermath of a terrible accident due to bad timing by those governing the movement of the trains.
Fast forward to the 1950s, and railroad workers asked to switch from pocket watches to wristwatches. These are the result. Same standards: black Arabic numerals on white dials, good accuracy, hacking to set seconds, etc.
I assume that when quartz movements became well established the railroads relaxed many of their rules concerning watches.
BTW, when I uploaded the photo a couple of watches were cut off-I’m new to WatchCrunch and still learning the ropes.
One or two other member have that Seiko, I believe. The Pulsar looks very similar.
As I understand it, Pulsar was a sub brand of Seiko where they introduced at least some of the quartz movements they had invented.
That’s great. I got three of those and was going to post once I finished putting my Citizen back together. Excellent job!
Cool. I have had a few of these but I never learned what made them “Railroad Approved” - do you know?
I believe that meant they met the RR standards as set by Webb C. Ball way back in 1870’s. That many the watch could be used on the job for RR workers I think.
I believe that meant they met the RR standards as set by Webb C. Ball way back in 1870’s. That many the watch could be used on the job for RR workers I think.
Interesting, I'll have to do a deep dive at some point and find out what the standards were.
Interesting, I'll have to do a deep dive at some point and find out what the standards were.
Take a look at this. https://pocketwatchdatabase.com/reference/railroad-grade-classifications
I believe that meant they met the RR standards as set by Webb C. Ball way back in 1870’s. That many the watch could be used on the job for RR workers I think.
I think that’s right.
I believe Ball, a jewler in Cleveland, approved high grade watches from a few American manufacturers and then began marketing some of them under the Ball Trainmaster brand.
As RR approved wristwatches caught on Omega produced its own “Trainmaster” based on its caliber 550. Ball, now a Swiss company, sued successfully for trademark infringement, and Omega stopped production after a relatively small run. One of these rare Omegas is one of my two holy grail pieces.