A Time Puzzle.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLVIII, Issue 1, 3 July 1912, Page 8

A Time Puzzle.

French railway officials are having a busy time just now explaining to irate passengers what is meant by 13 o’clock or 19.27 o’clock. With the beginning of May the new Ministerial decree came into force under which railw-ay time in future must be counted from one o’clock to 24 o’clock, the 24-hour day beginning at midnight. Time-tables have had to be readjusted, and all railway clocks provided with 24-hour dials. The new system is scientifically correct, and obviates the a.m. and p.m. confusion; but confusion of another kind will for some time be evident in the railway stations of France. Until last year, by the way, all French railway stations showed two distinct times —the time of the Paris meridian outside the station (this was compulsory by law) and five minutes slow of the time by the inside docks by which the traffic was worked. This inside time was a reminder that the first French railway began at Rouen, the time of the meridian of which was adopted by the railways as a sort of midway compromise between Paris and Greenwich, with the idea of eonveniencing English travellers. When, last year, France abandoned its own time meridian in favour of that of Greenwich, Rouen railway time also disappeared, and with it the puzzling discrepancy between the inside and outside clocks of French railway stations.