Railroad Waltham Pocket Watch

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During the late 1800s, the railroad pocket watch came to be used by all the railway workers. However, this only came to be due to a terrible accident.

In April 1891, two trains approached one another in the town of Kipton, Ohio. One of these trains was a passenger train while the other was a mail freighter. On the passenger train, and engineers pocket watch ceased to work for virtually four minutes and this caused the train to run late. Coming in from a different way, the mail freighter headed in the same general direction. Unfortunately, as the passenger train was now off schedule, a collided into the mail freighter just outside of town. Eight people died in the travesty, which included both of the conductors.

This incident forced the rail community to radically improve its timekeeping measures. A significant proponent of this change was watchmaker and jeweler W. C. Ball. As he specialized in timekeeping, he knew just how to maintain a watch running right on time and knew that if given the chance, he could ensure no future accidents happened as a result to stopped watches. For this reason alone, he was given the title of chief inspector for railroad timekeeping.

Upon getting this title, W. C. Ball instigated many new rules and regulations for any and all railroad pocket watches. The most significant of these rules was ever railway worker must have on hand a watch that was within the regulations that the American Railway Association set. Because of the seriousness of this regulation, inspectors will conduct random pocket watch searches to ensure that everybody complied with this rule. Anyone found guilty of noncompliance would face severe consequences.

While many different companies may pocket watches with these railway regulations in mind, one in particular stood out: Waltham. Depending on the pocket watch guide you confer with, you will find authenticated Waltham pocket watches selling for upwards of $1000. Of course, this all depends on several factors, including both the age and the condition of the rare world pocket watch.


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