Time zone interface at Swiss/Italian border

[Oxfordblues]

I wonder if someone can refresh my memory here? I believe there was a situation at the Swiss/Italian border at Chiasso (or was it Domodossola?) some years ago when the Italians unilaterally switched to Summer Time without advising the Swiss in advance. With no time to adjust the timetables northbound trains ran an hour late in Switzerland and southbound trains were held at the border for an hour before they could proceed through Italy in their booked times. This lasted for a few weeks until the Swiss finally changed to Summer Time.

I was involved with compiling timetables for freight trains through the Channel Tunnel and having learned the lessons from the fiasco at Chiasso we issued a special "equal clocks" timetable for the period of about a month when the UK and France changed-over to Summer Time on different dates. It took some years before there was international agreement to change the time zones on the same dates every year.

One of the potential benefits of European Union membership was for the UK to adopt Central European Time, but that might have been a step too far, even for "remainers"!

 

[Sir Felix Pole]

The EU directive to synchronise changeover dates was 1996 (last Sunday of March and October) - it was the Swiss, not being in the EU, who were reluctant to adopt it but had to bow to the inevitable after the chaos that ensued.

During the '60s and '70s the boat train schedules from Victoria were very complex - the changeover dates between France and the U.K. were different. To further complicate matters between 1968 and 1971 the U.K. remained on Summer Time (GMT +1) all year, and France adopted Sumer Time (GMT +2) from 1976 having previously been on GMT+1 all year.

 

[AdamWW]

One of the potential benefits of European Union membership was for the UK to adopt Central European Time, but that might have been a step too far, even for "remainers"!

I don't think that membership of the EU would be a requirement for the UK to do that if it wished.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

I don't think that membership of the EU would be a requirement for the UK to do that if it wished.

And there are time zone differences within the EU27 as well - Romania, Bulgaria, Greece, Cyprus, Finland and the Baltic states are an hour ahead of the rest, with Portugal (like UK, Ireland and Spain's Canary Islands) an hour behind.
But they all change on the same dates.

 

[The exile]

The EU directive to synchronise changeover dates was 1996 (last Sunday of March and October) - it was the Swiss, not being in the EU, who were reluctant to adopt it but had to bow to the inevitable after the chaos that ensued.

An example that those who always complained about us having to kow tow to “Europe” conveniently overlooked - they came into line with the dates on which we changed!

 

[Beebman]

The EU directive to synchronise changeover dates was 1996 (last Sunday of March and October) - it was the Swiss, not being in the EU, who were reluctant to adopt it but had to bow to the inevitable after the chaos that ensued.

During the '60s and '70s the boat train schedules from Victoria were very complex - the changeover dates between France and the U.K. were different. To further complicate matters between 1968 and 1971 the U.K. remained on Summer Time (GMT +1) all year, and France adopted Sumer Time (GMT +2) from 1976 having previously been on GMT+1 all year.

In April 1976 I went on a family trip from London to Paris using a hovercraft to cross the Channel and I remember us having to wait for over an hour at the Hoverport Station in Boulogne because the SNCF timetable was out of sync with the clock changes (we were able to spend the wait sitting on the train but it was a Caravelle DMU so not the most comfortable place to be).

 

[Oxfordblues]

Thanks for all the informative replies. I've just been round the house putting all the clocks forward an hour. In October they'll go forward 11 hours, so we "lose" 12 hours a year! (I was told off once for putting the hour-hand on an old railway clock back an hour. My supervisor said it might damage the mechanism!)

Leaving trainloads of passengers sitting for an hour at border stations or delivering them an hour late might have helped the success of low-cost short-haul flights. You can't imagine a plane being made to circle for an hour before landing!

 

[zero]

Are there any current time zone borders where clocks are changed on different dates?

Flight timetables do have to take this into account, for example between Australia and North America where for example the time difference between two airports might be 17, 18 or 19 hours during a full year.

 

[Gloster]

I remember travelling across to Cherbourg in 1995 and finding that the ferries and the connecting buses were out of kilter with each other, so there would have been an additional hour’s wait at the terminal for the ’connecting’ bus. My recollection is that this disconnect lasted for the three weeks that the British and French clocks were out of sync. I can’t remember the details, but I shared a taxi with a New Zealand couple and was able to catch an earlier train that got me to Paris for my last train home.

 

[Henffordd]

I was in France once in the 1980s during the weekend of "le changement". I caught a TV news item in which the reporter said "Across all the countries of Europe, clocks will change this weekend. There are only two exceptions: Albania and Great Britain." You can guess the tone of voice.

 

[Moritzplatz]

I wonder if someone can refresh my memory here? I believe there was a situation at the Swiss/Italian border at Chiasso (or was it Domodossola?) some years ago when the Italians unilaterally switched to Summer Time without advising the Swiss in advance. With no time to adjust the timetables northbound trains ran an hour late in Switzerland and southbound trains were held at the border for an hour before they could proceed through Italy in their booked times. This lasted for a few weeks until the Swiss finally changed to Summer Time.

In 1980, Switzerland didn't join its European neighbours in putting its clocks forward for the first time in spring. This was as a result of a May 1978 plebiscite in which 52.1% of the Swiss population voted not to do so. Swiss farmers felt that the time change would interfere with the natural processes of nature, e.g. their cows would demand to be milked at the same time of day. Others felt that this EU policy was an intervention in Swiss autonomy ("ein Brüsseler Zeitdiktat") and that the projected energy savings from the time zone introduction simply wouldn't materialise.

This referendum result meant that, from 6th April 1980 onwards, Switzerland was effectively in a different time zone from all of its neighbouring countries, which caused a number of cross-border logistical issues. Some trains - such as the 'Wienerwalzer' night train from Vienna - stood still at the border station (Buchs, in this case) for an hour, during which the train's toilet doors were locked 'so as not to make the station dirty'. Staff at Swiss border stations also needed to start work an hour earlier than previously planned.

Train passengers in the German town of Konstanz, which was served by Swiss trains from the Mittelthurgau-Bahn, had to get used to these trains operating according to Swiss time even when they were running on German territory. Buses in Konstanz and the adjoining Swiss city of Kreuzlingen just across the border used either the German or Swiss local time zones, resulting in umpteen missed connections for cross-border commuters.

SBB therefore had to rapidly introduce a new set of train timetables which affected a third of its trains, at a cost of around 13 million Swiss francs. Air travel between Zurich and international airports was also badly affected.

The Swiss government decided on 1st January 1981 to end the experiment and to re-harmonise their clocks with their European neighbours again, starting in the spring of 1981. Perhaps wisely, they didn't risk a referendum on the issue this time round, although anti-Zeitumstellung campaigners tried again in vain to force another plebiscite in 1982.

 

[Stossgebet]

Are there any current time zone borders where clocks are changed on different dates?

Flight timetables do have to take this into account, for example between Australia and North America where for example the time difference between two airports might be 17, 18 or 19 hours during a full year.

A couple of years ago, watching the ships at Mellila/Nador, where they enter through the same harbour wall, but turn left for Morocco and right for Spain, the usual 1 hour time difference between Spain and Morocco was increased to 2 hours, as Morocco delayed the time zone change for ramadam.

 

[edwin_m]

When I travelled round the States many years ago, Arizona and parts of Indiana did not observe daylight saving (based on a quick check I think Indiana has now fallen into line). Amtrak addressed this by making their timetable change dates the same as the start and end of daylight saving. There was also a note that at the autumn time change trains would be held for an hour at the relevant station, and for the spring time change they would run an hour late (which being Amtrak probably wasn't noticeably different from normal).

 

[Nigel]

When I travelled round the States many years ago, Arizona and parts of Indiana did not observe daylight saving (based on a quick check I think Indiana has now fallen into line).

I can confirm that when I was there in the 1980s, Arizona did not use DST. I had been there for a whole day without realising it. It was only when we went for dinner and found that the restaurant had not yet opened that the penny dropped!

 

[zero]

Arizona still doesn't observe DST except for the area where the Navajo Nation is located.

 

[mad_rich]

My favourite bizarre timezone is Australian Central Western Time (UTC +8:45), which exists only in a couple of small towns (total pop. 63, apparently) near the Western Australia/ South Australia border. Entirely unofficial, but widely-observed, and it allows residents to do business with both states (and passing traffic) with an offset of 45 minutes, instead of having to choose a 1.5 hour difference from Perth or Adelaide.

 

[Taunton]

The EU directive to synchronise changeover dates was 1996 (last Sunday of March and October) - it was the Swiss, not being in the EU, who were reluctant to adopt it but had to bow to the inevitable after the chaos that ensued.

It was not driven primarily by the EU, but by the United Nations, in particular their body the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO), one of the parts of the UN who actually do useful things, who had worked for years to have governments standardise the dates when clocks change back and forth, because it was becoming chaotic for international airlines, and international trade generally, with a whole range of different change dates which upset flight connections and closely planned "slots" for using airports. They finally achieved it, principally for the Northern Hemisphere, at this time. The EU went along with the UN approach.

It worked well until recently the USA unilaterally decided to change their dates, without particular regard to this agreement or considering the impact on international travel.

There are still a range of challenges around - Australia delegated the decision to individual States, leading to some changing the clocks and some not, as well as some having their time in half-hour increments from GMT. This can lead to State border towns for half the year being on the same time as one another, and the other half one hour different.

Railroads in the USA, incidentally, for long after general time used Daylight Saving, continued to use the state's "Standard Time", shown as such in timetables but confusing to passengers during the summer period who didn't understand the concept. Soviet Union was worse, everything was shown in Moscow Time, which led to timetables showing morning departures in the Far East as actually late the previous day, including reservations.

 

[JamesT]

The EU Parliament voted to abolish daylight saving in 2019. But it's never got any further towards implementation. Nations would choose whether to stick with summer or winter time all year.
It would be interesting to see if any nations took the opportunity to move themselves into the correct timezone for their location, rather than one imposed by fascists.

 

[Oxfordblues]

Soviet Union was worse, everything was shown in Moscow Time, which led to timetables showing morning departures in the Far East as actually late the previous day, including reservations.

Yes, in the glory days of Socialism nobody objected to decisions made in Moscow. To be fair, it made sense to have one time zone for the whole railway system, though perhaps not for stations in the Far East. I once travelled Moscow-Ulan Ude without adjusting my watch.

 

[LickeyIncliner]

It was not driven primarily by the EU, but by the United Nations, in particular their body the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO), one of the parts of the UN who actually do useful things, who had worked for years to have governments standardise the dates when clocks change back and forth, because it was becoming chaotic for international airlines, and international trade generally, with a whole range of different change dates which upset flight connections and closely planned "slots" for using airports. They finally achieved it, principally for the Northern Hemisphere, at this time. The EU went along with the UN approach.

I worked on one of the research projects that informed the EU directive and can confirm that the situation beforehand was pretty chaotic. I remember the Commercial department of a major European airline, providing a lot of services via a North European hub, telling us that they carefully adjusted their flights between the hub and the UK during the month or so in early autumn when the usual one-hour time difference disappeared, so as to maintain all the usual transfer possibilities. But that memo didn't seem to have reached their Operating department - a quick look at their published timetables showed that their connections went completely to put for that period, with an extra hour to wait in one direction and many connections becoming impossible in the other.

 

[Taunton]

Yes, in the glory days of Socialism nobody objected to decisions made in Moscow. To be fair, it made sense to have one time zone for the whole railway system, though perhaps not for stations in the Far East. I once travelled Moscow-Ulan Ude without adjusting my watch.

The same approach applied to Soviet international aviation, operated wholly on Moscow time. Aircrews to international points didn't stay in hotels there, but in specific accommodation attached to the relevant Soviet embassy, where they were served meals wholly on Moscow Time, regardless of local time (or daylight) outside.