International Meridian Conference
On 11 October 1883, a convention of railroad executives met in Chicago and agreed to the implementation of five time zones in North America, using as a basis Greenwich Mean Time. Before the invitations to the Washington conference were sent out on December 1, the joint efforts of Abbe, Fleming and William Frederick Allen, Secretary of the US railways' "General Time Convention" and Managing Editor of the "Travellers' Official Guide to the Railways", had brought the US railway companies to an agreement which led to standard railway time being introduced at noon on 18 November 1883 across the nation. Although this was not legally established until 1918, there was thus a strong sense of "fait accompli" that preceded the Washington conference, although setting local times was not part of the remit of the conference.
Time in Norway
It was not until 1885 the first suggestions came to introduce standard time in Norway, but this met great opposition by influencing groups and locally in the districts of Norway. The most complicated of four propositions was to divide Norway into 5 time zones 15 minutes apart. But none of them was accepted. In 1893 the time issue emerged again, and since the last time, the neighbouring countries Sweden and Denmark had adopted standard time, so also Germany (Central European time). In Norway, the railways in western and eastern Norway would be connected in a few years, and now the proposition to adapt to Central European was widely accepted. Hence, one standard time was introduced January 1., 1895 and has since then remained Greenwich + 1 (Central European time). On this date church clocks was either moved backward (east of 15°E), or forward (west of 15°E), except for Hadsel and Steigen parishes that continued with their local time as their churches lie almost on the 15°E meridian. The local time continued to live on for quite some time, especially in rural communities, where both the local and standard time were in use (the latter being referred to as "railway time").