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Railroad Grade
The 1891 Standards
Webster Clay Ball was given authority as the Chief Time Inspector in 1891 after the deadly Kipton, Ohio crash, tasked with enforcing strict requirements for railroad timepieces. Seth Thomas was one company that complied with Webb Ball's new accuracy standards, which specified that any railroad grade watch must be American-made, open-face 16 or 18-size, lever-set, have a minimum of 17 jewels, and be equipped with a steel escape wheel, a micro-regulator, and a bold Arabic dial. Railroad workers were required to submit their watches for regular inspection, and the most important criteria was that any watch had to be accurate to within 30 seconds a week.
How many rail lines chose to comply is debatable, because by the turn of the century there were some 11,000 miles of track, owned by hundreds of companies located in a dozen different states. Here are the few Seth Thomas variants that were railroad acceptable, which meant that they could be considered for railroad service by individual rail lines, and those models that were specifically meant for use on the railroad.
Acceptable Models
Model 3 Grade 506
Model 3 Henry Molineux
Model 3 Railway Queen
Some 400 of these 17-jewel variants marked Adjusted to Temperature and Positions were produced in both nickel and two-tone.
Model 3 Railway Queen
Model 3 Henry Molineux
Model 3 Railway Queen
The Railway Queen was also a Grade 506 in every way but the name, and it's not known if these were private labels or a named grade.
Model 3 Henry Molineux
Model 3 Henry Molineux
Model 3 Henry Molineux
The Molineux came in jewel counts of 17 and 21, which would qualify for railroad service, but none were marked anything but Adjusted.
Accepted Models
Model 5 Grade 260
Model 5 Maiden Lane
Model 5 Grade 260
The 260 was the factory's first 21-jewel watch with markings of either five or six positions, so it easily qualified for railway service.
Model 5 Grade 382
Model 5 Maiden Lane
Model 5 Grade 260
Roughly 630 of the 17-jewel 382 were made, and since they were adjusted to five positions they too would've been accepted into service.
Model 5 Maiden Lane
Model 5 Maiden Lane
Model 5 Maiden Lane
Even though the Maiden Lane eventually became the highest grade by jewel count, the earliest ones were only marked Adjusted.
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