posted
If one is on the train when we set our clocks forward and Arizona does not observe it thus making Arizona on the same zone as CA how does Amtrak deal with this? Do the trains arrive at the same time posted on the schedule or run it differently?
Also when I travel at the end of March will the days be longer going to and from New Mexico with dawn being earlier and dusk being later?
Posts: 259 | Registered: Jan 2005
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posted
I don't know for sure what happens if you're actually on the train when we change the clocks, but I imagine if you board at standard time in California and go onto daily savings while en route to NM, the time for the stops in AZ would stay the same as the schedule but the time for the arrival in NM would be on the old standard time and you would have to take the new daylight savings time into account, i.e., if the timetable says you arrive in Lamy NM at 2:30PM mountain time, and you arrive on time, it's going to be 3:30PM on the new daylight mountain time.
Re the light: I believe that if you travel at the end of March, dusk will definitely be later because you have set your clocks ahead but dawn should be later too, for the same reason. At some point the days do get noticeably longer, so that dawn comes earlier as well as dusk getting later, but we won't have reached that point at the end of March.
Of course, I'm talking about dawn and dusk at a fixed point. Dawn and dusk are at different times as you move west and east in a time zone, so if the train is in the more western part of the time zone, dawn and dusk will both be later than in the eastern part.
Does that make sense?
Posts: 2642 | From: upstate New York | Registered: Mar 2004
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posted
It should be noted that Daylight Savings Time has been a "non-term" since enactment of the Uniform Time Act of 1966.
Under this Act, Standard Time is advanced one hour from, at present, March 7 to November 1, however local jurisdictions at County level or higher may elect to "opt-out'. At present, only Arizona and Hawaii have "opted-out" at State level. Indiana remains some kind of "patchwork' in which some Counties opt-out and others do not.
Finally, the time change does affect railroad operations; when the time change occurs at 201A, the "Spring forward' means that any timetabled train on the road is instantly not less than "one hour late'. Roads usually will simply annul the timetable run, and will operate the train as "Extra (locomotive number, timetable direction of travel)". However, "back in days of yore' and with the ostensible liberty of a hogger to "interpret' authorized speeds, the "challenge" was there to recover that lost hour. Conversely, the "Fall back" simply means that a timetabled train will arrive at the next station, and "wait for time".
Posts: 9975 | From: Clarendon Hills, IL USA (BNSF Chicago Sub MP 18.71) | Registered: Apr 2002
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posted
I was on the Texas Eagle once many years ago on the night we changed from daylight time back to standard time, and the train simply stopped someplace (I believe it was Poplar Bluff, MO) and waited for an hour.
For the "spring forward" times in March, I don't think anything happens other than the train you will be on will be "an hour late(r)" than it normally would have been.
Posts: 2428 | From: Grayling, MI | Registered: Mar 2002
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posted
A few on this forum (Mr. Norman and I would fit into this category) will remember that many years ago railways ran on standard time all year long so, at least in theory, there was never any time zone confusion about when the train would arrive and depart.
Posts: 524 | From: Toronto Ont. Canada | Registered: Mar 2001
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Once a year one of my biggest pet peeves shows up. There is no "s" at the end of "Saving"---as in Daylight Saving Time. I sometimes will email the local news station letting them know that their talking heads should pronounce it correctly, because they usually get it wrong. A stupid pet peeve, I know....but it bugs the heck out of me. Sorta like the term "A whole nuther issue". Nuther??
Posts: 2355 | From: Pleasanton, CA | Registered: Apr 2007
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And not to be too picky, but the days will be just as long under "daylight savings" time as they would be under standard time, with each day gaining a bit more daylight until June 21.
Posts: 406 | From: La Grange, CA | Registered: Sep 2007
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Smitty, we have a place in Chicago called Soldier Field, where the Bears usually lose. But every Chicagoan born and bred calls it "Soldiers Field." If a fellow leaves off the second "s," he's got to be a suburbanite or a whole nuther kind of out-of-towner.
GBN, no less an authority than www.time.gov uses the term "Daylight Saving Time." And there are 1,830,000 hits for "Daylight Saving Time" on Google. How therefore can it be a non-term? (Or am I confused and you were actually referring to the solecism "Savings Time"?)
Everyone else, be sure to set your clocks for 2 a.m. this Sunday to get up and make a timely hour's deposit in the Daylight Savings Bank.
Posts: 2236 | From: Evanston, Ill. and Ontonagon, Mich. | Registered: Feb 2007
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However, I believe you will find the language "Standard Time advanced one hour" that was used in my earlier posting.
While I'm hardly about to deny that the term "Daylight Savings Time" is used in the vernacular, the above link should establish the term is not part of the law of the land.
Posts: 9975 | From: Clarendon Hills, IL USA (BNSF Chicago Sub MP 18.71) | Registered: Apr 2002
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posted
I was on the Three Rivers some years ago when Daylight Saving Time changed, and we simply "lingered" in Garrett, Indiana for some extra time until the adjustment was complete.
Also, Indiana has observed DST since 2005 when the Hoosier State passed a law agreeing to join the time change.
Posts: 76 | From: Steubenville, OH | Registered: Oct 2004
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Daylight Saving sometimes inconveniences me. I summer at a spot in western Upper Michigan that is almost two full degrees of longitude farther West than that of Evanston, Ill., the Chicago suburb where I live in the winter.
Because most of Upper Michigan (except the counties adjacent to Wisconsin) is on Eastern Daylight Time, darkness often does not envelop our little cabin until almost 11 p.m. This can be difficult for a geezer who usually goes to bed at 9.
And when we drive south to buy stuff in Eagle River or Rhinelander in Wisconsin, we have to remember that the stores there open a full hour later than the stores in our little town.
Posts: 2236 | From: Evanston, Ill. and Ontonagon, Mich. | Registered: Feb 2007
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quote:Originally posted by royaltrain: A few on this forum (Mr. Norman and I would fit into this category) will remember that many years ago railways ran on standard time all year long so, at least in theory, there was never any time zone confusion about when the train would arrive and depart.
Except for those of us who lived in an area where Daylight Saving Time, or "Fast time" as some called it, was observed everywhere except at the train station and along the railroad tracks. Arrival and departure times were one hour earlier than "clock time."
I remember the huge signs posted on the clock tower at Los Angeles Union Station reminding everyone that the time on the clock was Pacific Standard Time.
And, there is no real saving of daylight, it is merely reappropriated. Sounds like something the government thought of, doesn't it?
-------------------- Railrev Escondido, CA Posts: 99 | From: Escondido, California | Registered: Jul 2003
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However, I believe you will find the language "Standard Time advanced one hour" that was used in my earlier posting.
While I'm hardly about to deny that the term "Daylight Savings Time" is used in the vernacular, the above link should establish the term is not part of the law of the land.
I'm with Henry here. Daylight Saving is a de facto term used by most people and is irrelevant in law terms. I could pick holes in a number of your postings but choose not to for fear of being a pernicious bore and wanting to keep on subject. So let's stick to answering the question in a more dignified manner than picking holes everywhere.
Speaking of which, try catching a train in Russia where the timetables are in Moscow time. I never have and I wonder if anybody here has, and how they managed? And how is Daylight Saving handled?
RRRICH's comment is probably the most informative and simple to understand here, as is AHall's.
Geoff M.
Posts: 2426 | From: Apple Valley, CA | Registered: Sep 2000
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Mr. Mayo, as you know I am a retired CPA (Chartered Accountant over your way), and correct use of technical terms is simply part of my bearing.
I also have served in the US Air Force and attended a military regimented boarding school (no drill no uniforms) through my Secondary School years. No doubt, my use of Title and surname here at the Forum is also part of that bearing.
It's just how I was brought up and the career paths I selected; too late to change now!
Posts: 9975 | From: Clarendon Hills, IL USA (BNSF Chicago Sub MP 18.71) | Registered: Apr 2002
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Wouldn't want you to change, GBN. I enjoy our exchanges, even when I'm on the losing side. Your deep knowledge of railroad history is invaluable, although we wrangle about words.
By the way, just to continue the current debate, I Googled the term "Standard Time advanced one hour."
Just TWO (2) hits. One of them is a City of Louisville handbook from 1921. It was fun to browse through that. Where else could one learn that the monthly salary of the superintendent of the local workhouse was $125?
Posts: 2236 | From: Evanston, Ill. and Ontonagon, Mich. | Registered: Feb 2007
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posted
I appreciate GBN using a more formal style in his writing. It seems we have become far too casual in many ways. I really don't see a need for someone I don't know to call me by my first name, but perhaps that only serves to mark me as an old guy.
I couldn't find Mr. Kisor's reference to the L&N (you might guess that got my interest). I do recall with surprise one year that the Pan American did not enter the central time zone after crossing the Ohio into Covington, KY. Somehow the time zone had been moved to somewhere south of Louisville. No doubt politicians at work.
Posts: 2397 | From: Camden, SC | Registered: Mar 2006
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While I have no knowledge if the target of the AG's investigation was wilfully fraudulent or just plain stupid, it nevertheless points out how improper use of terms can result in a "bad day for someone".
Apparently, a South Suburban Hyundai dealer had 'bought' this ad copy. I had been listening to such for at least a week during the WBBM 780 5AM hour. I knew this was simply wrong and wondered how long such would continue to be aired.
This morning, I got my answer.
Posts: 9975 | From: Clarendon Hills, IL USA (BNSF Chicago Sub MP 18.71) | Registered: Apr 2002
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quote:Originally posted by Gilbert B Norman: Mr. Mayo, as you know I am a retired CPA (Chartered Accountant over your way), and correct use of technical terms is simply part of my bearing.
I too use technical terms, and the correct ones where appropriate. It doesn't matter what industry you're in, if the layman has no idea what you're talking about then you talk in the layman's language (I'm not referring to anybody in particular here). The laypeople here - and indeed most of the rest of the world know it as Daylight Saving[s] Time, be it wrong or right, that's how it is. "KISS" applies, without cluttering up threads with minor corrections to lingo when we all know what is meant. If it was ambiguous and/or completely wrong then I fully understand being corrected.
It just seemed a bit of a "pompous" (not the right word, but that's all I can think of at the moment) comment that didn't really serve to answer the question being asked. And now I've gone completely off-topic - sorry, Travelplus.
Geoff M.
-------------------- Geoff M. Posts: 2426 | From: Apple Valley, CA | Registered: Sep 2000
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quote: I appreciate GBN using a more formal style in his writing. It seems we have become far too casual in many ways. I really don't see a need for someone I don't know to call me by my first name, but perhaps that only serves to mark me as an old guy.
I concur, having been "guilty" at times of a similarly formal demeanor. Though I am in life's middle, and thus quite some time from retirement, I share the angst regarding the issue of unnecessary informality, to say nothing of the damage done to our language.
To put it in the words of none other than Lucy Ricardo (Lucille Ball), spoken to an English tutor in one memorable episode, "That would be a swell way to get off to a lousy start." Posts: 255 | Registered: Nov 2001
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"Lucy, you got a lot o' splaining to do!" Ricky Ricardo.
Ay yi yi. Maybe since the government is now making the time change in March (as opposed to the law of the land language stating an April date), we can call it whatever we want?
Posts: 406 | From: La Grange, CA | Registered: Sep 2007
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"Daylight Saving Time is four weeks longer since 2007 due to the passage of the Energy Policy Act in 2005. The Act extended Daylight Saving Time by four weeks from the second Sunday of March to the first Sunday of November, with the hope that it [would save] 10,000 barrels of oil each day through reduced use of power by businesses during daylight hours. Unfortunately, it is exceedingly difficult to determine energy savings from Daylight Saving Time and based on a variety of factors, it is possible that little or no energy is saved by Daylight Saving Time."
Well, look at all the energy we have expended on the topic in this forum . . . Not that any of it has been wasted. It has left a large entertainment footprint.
Posts: 2236 | From: Evanston, Ill. and Ontonagon, Mich. | Registered: Feb 2007
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posted
Somewhere I heard the description of daylight saving time as,
When you decide that your blanket is too short you cut one foot off of one end and sew it on the other, and then being unable to understand why your feet still hang out the bottom end.
One of my small joys of my years in Taiwan was that they left the clocks alone so that they did not spend several months a year - by government decree - trying to fool themselves into believing that when they got up extra early in those months that it was really 7:00 am (or whatever) like their clock said instead of 6:00 am like the sun and their body said.
Posts: 2808 | From: Olive Branch MS | Registered: Nov 2002
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Once a year one of my biggest pet peeves shows up. There is no "s" at the end of "Saving"---as in Daylight Saving Time.
Here are a couple more: it's preventive, not preventative and it's replenish, not replentish. Just so I don't get too far off Amtrak: To replenish the dining car regularly is preventive of hunger!
Posts: 518 | From: Maynard, MA, USA | Registered: Sep 2000
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posted
So, say your making a connection coming off an overnight train when you lose that hour. Example:your due into CUS at 4:00pm and instead you arrive at 5:00pm-your connection was due to leave at 4:30pm. Does Amtrak adjust departure times in order for passengers to make their connections? Devil's advocate.....western trains into Chicago often make the connections by the skin of their teeth as it is.
Posts: 387 | From: Bakersfield, CA | Registered: Jan 2003
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posted
Maybe the problem of connections on Daylight Savingzzzzz Day isn't all that great, Amtraxmaniac.
First, there's 40 minutes to an hour's slop in terminal arrival times, helping OT performance.
Second, didn't (in the last year or so) Amtrak move back departure times for eastbound LD trains out of Chicago to improve connection rates with eastbound LD trains into Chicago?
For instance, the Zephyr is carded to get in by 3:50p, the Builder 3:55p, and the SW Chief 3:20p.
Compare these with the departure times of 7:05p for the Capitol Limited, 10p for the Lake Shore Limited, 5:45p for the Cardinal and 8p for the Chicken Bone Special to New Orleans.
I believe Amtrak will hold departing LD trains for a certain time if (not too) late incoming trains have a certain number of through passengers.
So although there is always a possibility of a bad connection on Standard-Time-Advanced-One-Hour Day, it seems more likely that connections will be made.
(I didn't study the timetables for corridor trains out of Chicago. Perhaps there's another, later, train to Detroit or Milwaukee if your incoming LD train limps in late.)
Hope so, anyway.
If I can remember to do so, I'll check the arrival times of the three LD eastbounders into Chicago on Sunday (and departure times for the others) and see if there were any strandings.
Posts: 2236 | From: Evanston, Ill. and Ontonagon, Mich. | Registered: Feb 2007
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quote:Here are a couple more: it's preventive, not preventative and it's replenish, not replentish. Just so I don't get too far off Amtrak: To replenish the dining car regularly is preventive of hunger!
My dictionary says that either preventive or preventative is an acceptable word. I have never heard anyone say replentish!
Posts: 255 | Registered: Nov 2001
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Aren't the best words the ones with the fewest syllables? Perhaps this is why the most common expletives in English are words of one syllable. The Anglo-Saxons sure knew how to tell off people they didn't like.
Posts: 2236 | From: Evanston, Ill. and Ontonagon, Mich. | Registered: Feb 2007
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