>I believe the original standardisation of time was across the south of
>England to make sure trains would arrive when people expected
>them to. Before that, each town had its own time based on sunrise/
>sunset, meaning many time zones from Cornwall to London. 19th
>century mobile timepieces were accurate enough to establish the
>Greenwich standard and govern the railways. And yet they still run
>late today, "leaves on the track", "signal failure", etc

Not only leaves on the track and signal failure, but the wrong sort of =
snow as well (it freezes up the points and makes the rails slippery =
apparently). The rail network was certainly the  instigation for the =
standardisation of time across Britain. However even now there is a =
clock in Oxford, I think it is at the university, where "Oxford" time is =
maintained. It is about 5 minutes different to GMT.

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