Station Departure Times

I recently was given a NYC employee timetable titled, "Grand Central Terminal - Electric Division - New York Terminal District." It also says "Time-Table No. 52" and is dated Sunday, Sept. 29, 1940. In looking through it so far, and I haven't had time to read it in detail yet, I was amazed to see many times for leaving a station given in half minutes! An example is for The 20th Century Limited - it is listed as leaving Ossining at 6.42½. There are many with the ½, and I've seen one so far with ¾. Amazing how precisely these trains ran to schedule! The friend who gave me this timetable said NYC was one of just a few railroads to use half-minutes in their schedules, and that this one may be the last to use them. Really interesting to look through - I'm enjoying it very much.

i remember some years (decades, probably) back seeing a bit in one of the railfan magazines (it may have been the beside-the-contents editor's column in "R&R" or one of the unsigned snippets that used to be in the first few pages of "Trains" something about a guy who had gone on a nationwide trip in about 1940. Out of a dozen or so trains he had taken, one arrived at is destination 15 minutes late: the rest were on time. And (though I don't know what he based the judgment on) his opinion was that "the most professionally run" of the railroads he had ridden was the new York Central.
Somehow it's plausible that-- at least in the Electric Division-- they would have had a timetable specifying times in less-than-minute terms!

NYC was still using half-minute schedule times in 1965, in Hudson Division Timetable No. 17 of April 25. They were found in both Hudson-Electric and Harlem-Electric Subdivisions, but not the Hudson and Harlem (west of Croton and North White Plains).

I don't have a New Haven timetable, but I understand that they also used half-minute times west of New Haven.

That 1940 timetable can give you many interesting hours of study, especially if you have a copy of the 1937 Book of Rules so it all makes sense.

I'm pretty sure the New Haven also had quarter minute times in the Woodlawn-New Haven stretch.

When you get the "big picture" regarding the volume of traffic in to and out of GCT in those days, you will then understand the need for ½ minute timing! The precision required to get those interlocking plants co-ordinated must have been truly awsome. Rush hours must have been nightmarish when something fouled up and I'll bet there was a brass hat just itching to know why it had happened. Do I have that right, Larry?

cheers,
Ori
va3ori - va3xw

The New Haven Railroad used half minute times but not quarter minute
times right up until 1967 although the last employee timetable in May,
1968 did not carry half minute times. Probably Penn Central influence by
that time.
At the end it was in the area between New Haven and New York but in
earlier years there were a number of areas where half minute times were
in use.
Noel Weaver

If you look closely at the actual departure times in the "employee's" time table, you'll see that they're generally a minute later than what was printed in the "public" timetable. This allowed the gatemen to promptly close the track gate "as advertised" yet still allow stragglers to make it to their train.

As for tight squeezes (i.e. close schedules) at major junction interlockings, they were indeed fun. The operator at the interlocking machine kept watching the model board and threw all the signals and switches almost automatically without even thinging about what he was doing. On both the New York Central and the New Haven, there were certain "Do Not Delay" trains that would definitely result in a telephone call from Up On High if something went wrong.

Henry -

The "high class" NYC trains from GCT showed one minute later departure times. The New Haven, ca. 1961, did them one better (or one-half better) by showing departure times 30 seconds later than the public timetable.

NYC 25, the 20th Century Limited, showed departing Track 34 GCT at 5.01 pm (adjusted, for the public timetable showing 6.00 pm Local Time) but Y28, the New Haven's Gilt Edge, showed departing Track 19 daily at 5.00-1/2 pm! I suppose New Haven patrons walked to their trains faster

Gordon