Standard time
In 1870 Charles F. Dowd proposed four time zones based on the meridian through Washington, DC for North American railroads. In 1872 he revised his proposal to base it on the Greenwich meridian. Sandford Fleming, a Scottish-born engineer operating in Canada, proposed worldwide Standard Time at a meeting of the Royal Canadian Institute on February 8, 1879. Cleveland Abbe advocated standard time to better coordinate international weather observations and resultant weather forecasts, which had been coordinated using local solar time. In 1879 he recommended four time zones across the contiguous United States, based upon Greenwich Mean Time. The General Time Convention (renamed the American Railway Association in 1891), an organization of US railroads charged with coordinating schedules and operating standards, became increasingly concerned that if the US government adopted a standard time scheme it would be disadvantageous to its member railroads. William F. Allen, the Convention secretary, argued that North American railroads should adopt a five-zone standard, similar to the one in use today, to avoid government action. On October 11, 1883, the heads of the major railroads met in Chicago at the Grand Pacific Hotel and agreed to adopt Allen's proposed system.
Standard time
In the Netherlands, introduction of the railways made it desirable to create a standard time. On 1 May 1909, or Dutch Time was introduced. Before that, time was measured in different cities and in the east of the country, this was a few minutes later than in the west. In 1909, a national time was introduced which was the same as the local time in Amsterdam, to be precise the exact time of the Wester Tower (Westertoren/4°53'01.95" E). This time was indicated as GMT +0h 19m 32.13s until 17 March 1937, after which it was simplified to GMT+0h20m. This time zone was also known as the "Loenen time" or "Gorinchem time", as this was the exact time in both Loenen and Gorinchem. At noon in Amsterdam, it was 11:40 in London and 12:40 in Berlin.