It was the large number of different time systems that had evolved on the North American railways that lead to further reform and the adoption of time zones on that continent. The need for change was first mooted by Charles Dowd in 1870 and taken up in earnest by the railway engineer Sandford Fleming. Cleveland Abbe, a sometime astronomer and government meteorologist and geophysicist also became a keen advocate for reform when he discovered a large set of observations of the northern lights could not be reconciled due not only to the multiplicity of times being used by those who had observed them, but also the inconsistency in their application. It was William F Allen, editor of the Traveller’s Official Guide and secretary of the railroad industry’s General Time Convention (a group set up to harmonise train schedules), who turned talk into action, and brokered the move to a simplified time system. On 18 November 1883, at noon on the 75th Meridian, the North American railways switched over. Many cities quickly followed suit, leading to the rapid establishment of five, one-hour wide time zones across the continent.