Time and travel provide the topics for the latest edition of News Wire recommended reading, articles we consider worth calling to your attention:
— Australia’s Financial Review features a collection of antique railway clocks kept in a secure location beneath Sydney’s Central Station, and the uncertain plans for the valuable timepieces. The clocks, made for the New South Wales Government Railways, were manufactured by Connecticut’s defunct Seth Thomas Clock Co. And, because you can find just about anything on the internet, there’s more on the topic here in a 2016 report for Sydney Trains.
— It’s always interesting to see what general-circulation media chooses to highlight in “best of” lists for rail travel. The New York Times has run two such articles this month, one highlighting “Six spectacular North American train trips,” and one on five recommended trips in Germany that can be made using the country’s €58 (currently $63) Deutschland Ticket, good for travel on non-high-speed trains.
— An article on the website Streetsblog USA asks whether the time has come for more overnight trains in the U.S., although the current prospects for Amtrak (as considered by Trains columnist Bill Stephens) suggest the answer is no.
— Transportation columnist Jim Cameron of news site CT Mirror talks with soon-to-retire Metro-North President Catherine Rinaldi, who for a time oversaw both Metro-North and the Long Island Rail Road. (Editor’s note: the energetic Rinaldi was a pleasure to talk with for our report on major Metropolitan Transportation Authority commuter rail projects — see “Putting it together,”” Trains Magazine, July 2023 — and one of the interesting parts of the reporting process for that article was the number of MTA employees who offered unsolicited praise of her).
Seth Thomas manufacured excellent and reliable clocks that did not require electricity to function. They used weights to power the mechanisms (springs would weaken with use)
Precise time was vital for safe train movement before Movement of Ttrains by Signal Indication. It remains vital in the event of signal failure.