Before the railways, it did not matter much that towns kept different local times. Fast railway travel changed that, because trains ran to timetables. In the United States, most towns kept their own local time based on the sun, which made train schedules confusing.

In 1852 Greenwich began sending accurate time signals over the electric telegraph wires. The railways used those wires to pass Greenwich time to stations across Britain. By 1855 nearly all public clocks followed this railway time.

On November 18, 1883, American railroads began using four standard time zones to replace the many local times used in schedules.

The London and Blackwall Railway pulled its carriages by cable. It used electric telegraph instruments to send messages to the rope-engine house to start and stop the hauling.

George Westinghouse invented the compressed-air brake for railway trains in 1869. A freight train can take a mile or more to come to a complete stop.

Many railways keep trains apart by dividing the track into blocks and letting only one train be in each block at a time.

Words to know

• timetables: train schedules
• telegraph: wire message system
• blocks: track sections
• standard: the same everywhere
• Greenwich: time signal place