John W. <worthj1970@yahoo.com> wrote:

> >>Note that the above site also mentions that Japan got their rail system
> >>from the UK, and that enforced the previous samurai behavior. Somehow
> >>the notion that the British rail system is more efficient is...
> >>interesting.
> > 
> > 
> > Do remember that the transfer happened a long, long time ago, in British
> > Rail terms....
> > 
> I don't know if I've ever seen anything about the timeliness of trains in
> that era, from anywhere.

I Was Told that way back in the glorious years of independent railway
companies (before British Rail was formed, and long before the recent
inglorious years of independent railway companies), a Station Master
would get sacked if a train left his station even one minute late.

I Was Also Told that the advent of cross-country train lines in Britain
forced local regions to set their clocks by Greenwich Mean Time, because
otherwise no-one would know when the trains would arrive. For a while,
railway time could be wildly different from local time.

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                   Louise Bremner (log at gol dot com)
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