The Time Bosses: When Trains Told America What Time It Was

Time Zones weren't created by the government -- they were forced on America by railroad companies tired of cities making up their own time. This episode of IDKMYDE, B Daht breaks down how one Canadian engineer and a bunch of fed-up train schedules shaped the clocks we still obey today!

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
I didn't know, Welcome Back nor It ass to another
episode of the most anticipated podcast on the Black Effect
Podcast Network entitled I didn't know, Maybe you didn't either.
I'm your host B Dots aka King Dots, mister alumni
twenty twenty five at Winston Salem State University, and although
I have a huge allegiance to my alma mater, Winston

(00:22):
Salem State University, I also have a deep, deep love
for Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University found at October third,
eighteen eighty seven. For the past two seasons, I've been
the PA announcer for the football team and it's been
a bit rocky, but they have really taken me in
as family. And I experienced my very first classic, the

(00:43):
Florida Classic, in Orlando, Florida. It's been going on since
nineteen hundred and ninety eight. Fam You versus Bethune Cook Me.
Those two teams hate each other, both in Florida. Story
goes that a petition had to be signed by fam
You and a couple had to be given to doctor
Mary MacLeod Bethune in order to even start Bethune Cookman

(01:06):
in nineteen oh four, but she took that dollar fifty
cent and them five black girls, and she started.

Speaker 2 (01:12):
Bethune.

Speaker 1 (01:12):
Cookman and the Wildcats faced the Rattlers in Orlando, Florida.
Sixty thousand people at the game. Turned Rattler's up four
with twenty eight seconds left in the game, fourth and
eight for the Bethune Wildcats, and they throw a thirty
two yard touchdown bomb to beat My Rattlers.

Speaker 2 (01:32):
Devastated, But it was a great experience.

Speaker 1 (01:34):
Man, if you've never experienced a classic, you gotta put
it on your bucket list. It's like Homecoming two point zero.
It's food vendor's closed, vendor's thousands and thousands of people
fan fest there. And because I'm the PA announcer four
of the family Rattlers, they switch who's at home every
other year, So next year I won't get to do PA.
But twenty twenty seven, I'm bike. Like the name on

(01:55):
a jersey. If you know anything about me is all
HBC you love all the time. My wife graduated from
North Carolina Anti State University. My son is a freshman
at Livingstone College. My daughter's only in the eighth grade,
but she's narrowed it down to the three colleges she
wants to go to Winston Salem State, Howard or fam
you and as mister alumni for Winston Salem State University,

(02:19):
there's something that FAMU does traditionally that I want to
take back to Winston Salem State. See, FAM you acknowledges
their freshman class. Most times, when you ask somebody what
years you went to college, you always say what years
you graduate and they say two thousand and six from
Winston Salem State University. But not the Rattlers. I mean,
I'm sure they acknowledge their senior year, but they give

(02:41):
more recognition to their freshman class. I'm freshman class of
two thousand, and that makes so much sense to me
because if you only celebrate your graduating class, you're only
celebrating the people that graduated. And you might not have graduated,
But that don't mean you ain't a rattler or a ram.
There are folks that came into college with me in
two thousand that just didn't make the mark. Are they

(03:02):
any less ram? No, because we all entered to learn together. See,
everybody gets to be a freshman, but not everybody gets
to be a senior. So I'm definitely taking that to
my national Alumni Association, and I'm saying, hey, I want
us to switch the verbage a little bit. Yes, we
can acknowledge our graduating class, but let's put some emphasis
on our freshman class, our brothers and sisters that might

(03:25):
not have made it to graduation, but a RAMS. Nonetheless,
if this is your first time listening to the podcast,
first of all, we would like to say welcome. Make
sure you catch up on the two hundred plus episodes
that you missed, and get ready for season five, kicking
off February first, twenty twenty six, with twenty eight curated
episodes specifically for Black History Month. Things about Black history

(03:47):
that I didn't know maybe you didn't either. Now today's
episode is a bit embarrassing because I feel like this
is something that I should have learned in school, and
it was probably taught to me, but it was one
of those days where I probably wanted to entertain more
than be educated. And before I get into the meat
of the episode, we will start off, as we do
every episode, with three of the most useless facts You'll

(04:10):
never need, never not a day in life.

Speaker 2 (04:12):
About time zones. Up.

Speaker 1 (04:16):
First, China, Big Old China only uses one time zone,
even though it's physically big enough for five different time zones.
Your second useless facts. Before time zones, towns just set
they clocks by dude literally checking the sun with a
device called a noon mark.

Speaker 2 (04:37):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (04:38):
I briefly discussed this on another episode. Let's take North
Carolina for example. It could be twelve thirty in Charlotte,
one twenty seven in Greensboro, and three thirty two in Durham.

Speaker 2 (04:49):
And your third.

Speaker 1 (04:50):
Useless fact, the first people in America to use standardized
time wasn't a government now it was the railroad companies
say they were tired of train crashing into each other
because everybody was making up.

Speaker 2 (05:02):
Their own times. This is a fact. So those have
been your three useless facts.

Speaker 1 (05:07):
China, even though it's the same size damn near as
the United States, it only uses one time zone. And
even though we were the same size, China got one
point four billion people while we got three hundred and
thirty million. China got over four times as many people
in almost the same size land space. That is wild second,

(05:29):
before we even had time zones, it was just some
dudes setting clocks with a device he had called a
noon mark. And lastly, the government didn't issue time zones
railroad companies did. And that's what this episode is about.
Because I had a homegirl. She was in California. She
works for the Panthers, so she was at the San
Francisco in the Carolina game, and it was noon for

(05:51):
her but three for me, and very ignorantly, the two
of us just started conversing about how we didn't understand
why there were time zones.

Speaker 2 (05:59):
Mean, we understand the logic.

Speaker 1 (06:01):
The sun is right on the East coast when it's
not on the West coast, so you sync it up
with the sun. But did you know who had the
brains to sync it up with the sun and who
made it a law so that the entire country had
to abide by it. Because I didn't I didn't know.

Speaker 2 (06:19):
I didn't know. I didn't know. I didn't know. I
didn't know. I didn't know.

Speaker 1 (06:28):
So again, Shena and I understood that it was three
o'clock in Charlotte and brunch time in San Francisco because
the Earth is spinning. We understand that the Earth is
spinning slow, steady, consistently, and as it spinds, different parts
of the world face the Sun at different times. So
if you want noon to actually mean the sun is

(06:50):
kind of overhead. Then everybody can't use the same clock time.
But here's the thing. For most of history we did.
Every city made their own time, dead ass. It was
called local solar time. Google it. Harlem had their time,
Brooklyn had their time, the Bronx had their time, and
the Staaten Island and like any of them times they

(07:11):
can make their own time. Now imagine this world and
then add trains. High level confusion. Trains came through, like yo,
we're trying to run a national railroad here and y'all
out here arguing whether it's twelve oh two or eleven
fifty six like tom was so messy that trains were
literally missing each other's schedules and sometimes just straight colliding
and crashing into each other. Why, because your clock was

(07:33):
your clock, nobody had to match anybody else's clock. So
enter Sir Sandford Fleming, a Canadian engineer who basically said,
bro enough, we need a global system. But the US
government didn't create time zones. No, the railroads did. And
that's when you realize just how much power the railroads

(07:55):
had back then. The date was November eighteenth, eighteen eighty three,
and the major railroad companies just decided, you know what,
We're gonna use four time zones and we really don't
care how you feel about it, Eastern, Central Mountain and Pacific.
And as the King James version states it was written,
nobody argued. Most cities just switched to follow them. The

(08:18):
government didn't make it official till nineteen eighteen, thirty five
years later, with the Standard Time Act. Let that sink
in a minute. Private companies gave us time zones. The
government just signed the permission sloop so to get all
of us adults educated on a fifth grade learning level.
Why the time difference because the earth is spinning? And

(08:39):
why is it standardized because trains were tired of crashing?
And who made the call? A Canadian dude with common
sense and American railroad.

Speaker 2 (08:48):
Bosses with clout? And how long has it been this way?

Speaker 1 (08:52):
One hundred and forty years, Like we've had the same
time structure longer than we've had cars, airplanes, movies or
peanut butter in a jar. So the next time somebody says, hey,
let's hop on a call at five pm Eastern time,
just know that the only reason that makes sense today
is because the train companies was like, nah, y'all gonna
have to get on the same time whether you like

(09:13):
it or not.

Speaker 2 (09:14):
And I didn't know. Maybe you didn't either,