Cleveland Abbe
In order to compile his information, Abbe required a time-keeping system that was consistent among the stations. To accomplish this he divided the United States into four standard time zones. He published, in 1879, a paper titled "Report on Standard Time". In 1883, he convinced North American railroad companies to adopt his time-zone system. In 1884, Britain, which had already adopted its own standard time system for England, Scotland, and Wales, helped gather international consent for global time. In time, the American government, influenced in part by his 1879 paper, adopted the time-zone system.
Charles F. Dowd
Except for meridians based on Greenwich, the system adopted by the railroad industry on 18 November 1883 ignored Dowd's proposal. The adopted system by William F. Allen, editor of the "Traveler's Official Railway Guide", had borders that passed through railway terminals, even some in major cities, like Detroit, Buffalo, Pittsburgh, Atlanta, and Charleston—these formed the border between the eastern and central time zones. It included a fifth time zone for eastern Canada, called Intercolonial Time after the Intercolonial Railway serving eastern Canada. Each of these boundary cities had to adopt one of the two railroad zones or continue to use local mean solar time. The 1918 Standard Time Act moved the borders to relatively rural areas.