Here are two of my Railroad watches from the 1920s The Hamilton is a model 992 and the Elgin is a model BW Raymond.

Very nice collection of pocket Railroads. They are highly sought after.

This is a Canadian Pacific Accutron from my collection. In wearing the watch here on the east coast, I thought something is not right here since there is no land time zone 1 hour before eastern. Then I found other Accutrons with the red hour to the left. That made me think the dual hand was just put on upside down. I looked and the dual hour hand was not painted on the reverse side. Finally it dawned on me that they must have issued these watches based on which division the crew was based in and this would be the western most division.

Here is information I came across on line:
"Another interesting variation that one often sees on CPR watches is the "dual Time Zone" setup. In certain parts of the country, a rail subdivision may span two time zones, (example, a crew starting out in the Laggan Subdivision in the Rockies would start out on Central Time, but once they crossed over into the Mountain Subdivision, they would be governed by Pacific Time.) and as crews were not supposed to adjust their watches, one easy solution was to add a second hour hand, offfset by exactly one hour. These hands were usually colored a matte red, but one occasionally sees a second hour hand that was gold coloured. These dual time zone watches were not common, but they were a elegant solution where needed."

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Bill D

That BW Raymond in particular. The railroad watch is a subset of this disease that I have stated clear of, if only because I couldn't stand another dose of insanity. Thanks. Lolol.

MikeyT
In the Thumb of Michigan

especially since here in Europe, we often are an hour behind the rest of civilisation on GMT?UTC and Eurotime. Such an elegant simple solution yet stops Casey Jones fiddling with the watch on the go!

examples of the 'railroad watch'. If you could, it may be interesting for those who have not seen a 'lever set' watch to see the front of the watch showing the 'lever' and it's purpose.