THE 24-HOUR CLOCK

Feilding Star, Volume 7, Issue 2305, 7 September 1929, Page 6

THE 24-HOUR CLOCK

SCIENTIFIC SUGGESTION A proposal that the 2-1 hour system should be adopted in railway time-tables in Britain was advanced in a letter to the London Times by Sir /Frank Dysoiij, (the Astronomer Royal, and others, following an intimation from the railway companies that they were ready to make the change if th e public desired it. Subsequent correspondence afforded “a. substantial case” for change, but in a recent letter to the Times the Astronomer Royal quotes an oilicial communication from railway companies in conference, stating that “ the position is that, while the adoption of tho 24-hour system would involve certain additional expense, the companies would be quite willing to adopt this method in the event of it being applied to tho country as a wl Lie, hut they are not prepared to alter the existing arrangements until tho 24 hour 'system is adopted nationally.” Sir Frank Dyson adds that ‘The altitude of the irajlway companies seems to us that they have changed a little” since they wanted the Royal Astronomical Society last October to “set the ball rolling.” Hence, ‘‘the council, of the society does not see its way to urge the adoption of the 24 hour system by tUc country as a whole, which is now stated to he a necessary condition for action by tlitf railway companies; in oilier’ countries tlq, railway companies have generally taken the lead."