On this episode of Our American Stories, today, America runs on four time zones, but before the railroad era, thousands of towns kept their own local time based on the sun. As rail travel expanded in the 1800s, that system became dangerous and unworkable. Our own Greg Hengler shares the story of how railroad companies, not the federal government, created standardized time zones to keep trains running safely and on schedule, reshaping how Americans understood time itself.

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