Balmoral Hotel, Edinburgh. The station clock that’s always wrong.
Built by the North British Railway, this Scottish Baronial style clocktower is one of Edinburgh’s prime skyline features and arguably the most photographed clock
in Scotland. When it was set going in 1902, the railway company decided to use time-telling to encourage passengers not to miss their trains and the hands were set “fast”. That tradition continues and our maintenance job sheet includes the instruction “set 3-4 mins fast so that people do not miss their train at Waverley Station”.
Scotland however respects accurate timekeeping, particularly at the chiming in of the New Year, so our clockmakers must be on hand to temporarily set the clock “right” for Hogmanay.
Originally having a hand-wound mechanism, it is nowelectrified with power failure back-up to accuratelymaintain “incorrect” time!
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