Politics & Government
Daylight Saving Time Ends: Did You Know Railroads Set it All in Motion?
Daylight Saving Time in 2013 ends at 2 a.m., Sunday, for Sandy Springs and most of the United States and Canada.
We're consumed by time. How did that happen? Well, the railroads had something to do with it. In a March 2011 New York Times Op-Ed, “Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is, Howard Mansfield explains how clocks were only a necessary means for our need to not be idle. And the railroad is the culprit that really made us start to count the minutes.
Click here: It's a fun read.
According to the NY Times story, the railroads did things by their own clock, which confused travelers. Some stations had two clocks because of this. Plus travelers' hometowns had clocks set to their own time. Noontime in one city, might be 12:10 p.m., in another town nearby.
So it was the railroad that divided the country into different time zones, the story said.
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Arizona, Puerto Rico, Hawaii, U.S. Virgin Islands and American Samoa do not observe Daylight Savings Time.
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