[bobthepanda]

Railroads also invented time zones. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railway_time

Prior to this each town observed its own time zone according to its solar noon. Railroads were the first means of transportation where keeping themselves in sync with each other and the local time was hard because trains traveled so quickly compared to previous forms of transport.

[monkeybutton]

Its not possible to make an app that actually does this on Android due to permissions; but sometimes I day dream of an app that automatically shifts your phones time using the current GPS location. Not by which timezone you are in, but by when solar noon would be based on your exact location.

[jefftk]

Sometimes I wonder about alternative worlds where railroads weren't possible (mountains? archipelago?) and local solar time remained the only thing.

[bena]

Once long distance telegraphy and telephones are invented, you'd need to synchronize time again.

[jefftk]

Maybe an archipelago of large independent cities, all too proud to switch to the local time of another? It's annoying for scheduling things that go between islands, but this is just a really small portion of what anyone is doing?

[bena]

Now you're trying to define the society based on the result you want. The fact that you have to put up so many roadblocks to get the result you're looking for should tell you that synchronized time is inevitable.

Because now you have to have an archipelago of independent cities that don't even want to talk to other cities or expand or anything.

[jefftk]

> Now you're trying to define the society based on the result you want.

Yes? The whole idea was to think about what sort of world you would need for local solar time to you have persisted.

[dredmorbius]

It was also somewhat important to arrange for two trains not to be on the same section of track at the same time.

This was not always a successfully sustained state in early days. Or even today, though with far lower frequency.