[BC] Western Union Clocks

[Schardin, Hal (DEED)]

David,
Here's an interesting item from Wiki:
In North America, whenever the error exceeds 10 seconds for the east, 3 seconds for Texas, or 2 seconds for the west, a correction of ±0.02 Hz (0.033%) is applied. Time error corrections start and end either on the hour or on the half hour.

So in the East, the time could be +- 10 seconds at any one time. Errors would eventually be corrected so synchronous clocks wouldn't gain or lose overall.
The full article is at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utility_frequency
look under the STABILITY section.

Hal Schardin 

>While the freq might drift a bit, conventional clocks kept time so well (at least here in the SF Bay Area where we have Pacific Gas & Electric) that a clock need only be corrected every few days at the very >most.