The April mart had a good selection of tools, watches and clocks. George Waterhouse brought a Birge & Mallory triple deck shelf clock with a strap time and strike weight driven movement. This was for show and tell, George intends to restore this clock and this was the before event. He will return with the clock fully restored sometime in the future.
The Watch Focus Group's subject for this month was 16-size Rockford watches. The display cabinet was filled with multiple examples of grade 655 wind indicators and grade 405 Winnebagos along with a host of other Rockfords. The duplicate examples were confusing enough to have to check the serial numbers when the watches were returned to their owners. The nicest watches displayed were John Cheves' gold on nickel damaskeened grade 537 and Jim Davis' 17-jewel open-face beauty all tricked out with gold trim. The subject for the June meeting will be Columbus watches.
It was also announced that the NAWCC Symposium has been renamed the Ward Francillon Symposium in honor of chapter member Ward Francillon, who has long been an ardent proponent of the symposiums.
Secretary Alan Walker then presented, "The Rise and Fall of Railroad Time Service." This program focused on the need for time service to provide safe, efficient operations in the early days of American railroads and the eventual development of signal and communications technology which would relegate railroad time service to the history books. Alan's well-prepared presentation held everybody's interest. He displayed examples of watch inspection order forms, watch certificates, standard clock daily record forms and signs for designating Standard Clocks and which noted their deviation from Standard Time.