Time Zones
时区的概念在19世纪之前并不存在。1883年，不同地区的铁路官员聚集在一起，来商讨一个头疼的问题:如何结束各地区混乱的时间问题。
Time zones, a novel concept in the 1800s, were created by railroad officials who convened meetings in 1883 to deal with a major headache. It was becoming impossible to know what time it was.
美国没有标准统一的时间是造成这种混乱的根本原因。每个乡镇和城市都按各自的日出日落计时，当太阳在正头顶的时候将时钟设置为12时。
The underlying cause of confusion was simply that the United States had no time standard. Each town or city would keep its own solar time, setting clocks so noon was when the sun was directly overhead
这种方法在那些从不离乡的人眼里看起来理所当然，对于旅行者来说这是个头疼的问题。正午的波士顿时间比纽约提前几分钟。费城的正午时间又比纽约晚几分钟。这样一来，这种时间混乱的现象遍布全国。
That made perfect sense for anyone who never left town, but it became complicated for travelers. Noon in Boston would be a few minutes before noon in New York City. Philadelphians experienced noon a few minutes after New Yorkers did. And on and on, across the nation.
铁路的运转需要精准可靠的时间表，这种时间上的混乱造成了很大的困扰。1883年四月19日，纽约时报的头条报道到:“这个国家的各条铁路竟然有56个不同的运营时间表。”
For railroads, which needed reliable timetables, this created a huge problem. "Fifty-six standards of time are now employed by the various railroads of the country in preparing their schedules of running times," reported the front page of the New York Times on April 19, 1883.
相关工作完成后，1883年末美国大部分地区被划分为四个时区，几年后，全世界都采用了美国的时区划分模式。
Something had to be done, and by the end of 1883 the United States, for the most part, was operating on four time zones. Within a few years, the entire world followed that example.
所以说，美国铁路改变了全世界时间划分方法的说法是公正的。
So it's fair to say the American railroads changed the way the entire planet told time.
标准化时间的决定The Decision to Standardize Time
American Railroads
美国内战之后，随着铁路的扩张，使得各地独立的时间表显得混乱不堪。最终，在1883年春季，全国的铁路领袖派出各自的代表集中开会，这次会议被称为《铁路通用时间公约》。
The expansion of the railroads in the years following the Civil War only made the confusion over all the local time zones seem worse. Finally, in the spring of 1883, the leaders of the nation's railroads sent representatives to a meeting of what was called the General Railroad Time Convention.
1883年4月11日，在密苏里州圣路易斯，铁路官员们达成了共识，在北美建立五个时区，分别是:省时区、东部时区、中部时区、山区时区和太平洋时区。
On April 11, 1883, in St. Louis, Missouri, railroad officials agreed to create five time zones in North America: Provincial, Eastern, Central, Mountain, and Pacific.
早在1870年就有学者提出标准时区的概念。最初，他们倡议建立两个时区，以华盛顿和新奥尔良的正午时间为标准。但这种方法会给人活在西部的人们带来困扰，最后他们的提议修改为4个“时间带”，跨越第75、90、105和115经线。
The concept of standard time zones had actually been suggested by several professors going back to the early 1870s. At first, it was suggested that there be two time zones, set to when noon occurred in Washington, D.C. and New Orleans. But that would create potential problems for people living in the West, so the idea eventually evolved into four "time belts" set to straddle the 75th, 90th, 105th, and 115th meridians.
1883年十月11日，铁路时间通用公约在芝加哥再一次召开，这次会议决定新的标准时间将于一个月后的1183年11月18日周日生效。
On October 11, 1883, the General Railroad Time Convention met again in Chicago. And it was formally decided that the new standard of time would take effect a little more than a month later, on Sunday, November 18, 1883
随着生效的时间越来越近，报社们大量报道了新标准时间的计算流程。
As the date for the big change approached, newspapers published numerous articles explaining how the process would work.
对很多人来说，标准时间的生效仅仅意味着几分钟时间的变化。比如说纽约，时间将后调四分钟，进一步来讲，纽约的正午时间正好发生在波士顿、费城和其他东部城市的正午。
The shift only amounted to a few minutes for many people. In New York City, for instance, the clocks would be turned back four minutes. Going forward, noon in New York would occur at the same moment as noon in Boston, Philadelphia, and other cities in the East.
很多城镇的珠宝商抓住免费为客户调整钟表的机会来招揽生意。虽然新的时间标准并没有得到政府的认可，为了帮助人们调整钟表，华盛顿海军天文台通过电报的形式发布新的标准时间信号。
In many towns and cities, jewelers used the event to drum up business by offering to set watches to the new time standard. And though the new time standard was not sanctioned by the federal government, the Naval Observatory in Washington offered to send, by telegraph, a new time signal so people could synchronize their watches.
标准时间的反对声音Resistance to Standard Time
Louisville
看起来大部分民众对标准时间没有反对意见，于是它被广泛的接受和应用。火车上的旅者对这一改变非常支持。1883年11月16日纽约时报的一篇文章记载:“旅者从波特兰到查尔斯顿，或从芝加哥到新奥尔良，走完全程都不需要调手表。”
It seems most people had no objection to the new time standard, and it was widely accepted as a sign of progress. Travelers on the railroads, in particular, appreciated it. An article in the New York Times on November 16, 1883, noted, "The passenger from Portland, Me., to Charleston, S.C., or from Chicago to New Orleans, can make the entire run without changing his watch."
就在新时区在铁路普及的时候，很多城镇自愿接受这一新的时间计算方法，很多因为混乱而导致的意外却频频见报。费城问询报在1883年11月21号的报道描述一则意外事件，一名债权人被波士顿法庭要求第二天早上九点来报道的趣事。该报将故事经过总结如下:
As the time change was instituted by the railroads, and voluntarily accepted by many towns and cities, some incidents of confusion appeared in newspapers. A report in the Philadelphia Inquirer on November 21, 1883, described an incident where a debtor had been ordered to report to a Boston courtroom at 9:00 on the previous morning. The newspaper story concluded:
“按照惯例，这么可怜的债权人被给予了一个小时的宽容时间，为了赶在委员们前面，他在标准时间9:48到达，但是(根据修改前的时间表）委员们认为他是十点后到达，所以违约了，该案件可能会提交到高院审理。”
"According to custom, the poor debtor is allowed one hour's grace. He appeared before the commissioner at 9:48 o'clock, standard time, but the commissioner ruled that it was after ten o'clock and defaulted him. The case will probably be brought before the Supreme Court."
类似这样的意外的发生，表明了所有人都接受标准时间的重要性。然而在一些地方，还残存着抵抗的声音。在接下来的夏季1884年6月24日，纽约时报的一篇报道详细记载了路易斯维尔州、肯塔基州是如何弃用标准时间的。路易斯维尔州将时钟调快18分钟来恢复之前的太阳时。
Incidents like that demonstrated the need for everyone to adopt the new standard time. However, in some places, there was lingering resistance. An item in the New York Times the following summer, on June 28, 1884, detailed how the city of Louisville, Kentucky, had given up on standard time. Louisville set all its clocks ahead 18 minutes to return to solar time.
那么路易斯维尔州存在的问题是，银行界采取了和铁路一样的新的标准时间，其他行业却没有，所以产生了下班时间混乱的问题。
The problem in Louisville was that while the banks adapted to the time standard of the railroad, other businesses did not. So there was persistent confusion about when business hours actually ended each day.
当然，纵观19时间八十年代，大部分行业都明白采用标准时间的重要性。到了九十年代，标准时间和标准时区终于被普遍接受了。
Of course, throughout the 1880s most businesses saw the value of moving permanently to standard time. By the 1890s standard time and time zones were accepted as ordinary.
时区划分全球化Time Zones Went Worldwide
Time Zones In America
英国和法国早在数十年前就标准化了全国时间，由于他们国家相对小，只需要一个时区就够了。1883年美国成功采用标准时间的例子，为时区覆盖全球建立起了好榜样。
Britain and France had each adopted national time standards decades earlier, but as they were smaller countries, there was no need for more than one-time zone. The successful adoption of standard time in the United States in 1883 set an example of how time zones could spread across the globe.
第二年在巴黎召开的时间公约旨在为全球划分时区，最终产生了我们今天所使用的时区划分方法。
The following year a time convention in Paris began the work of designated time zones worldwide. Eventually, the time zones around the globe we know today came into use.
1918年美国政府正式通过了标准时间法案，时区划分正式拥有法律效应。今天，大部分人认为时区的不同是理所当然的，完全不知道这竟是来自铁路部门的一个为了规范工作的设计方案。
The United States government made the time zones official bypassing the Standard Time Act in 1918. Today, most people simply take time zones for granted and have no idea that time zones were actually a solution devised by the railroads.
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