That’s only due to extensive synchronization and much more accurate timekeeping. Modern extremely high quality mechanical watches today are only accurate to som

That’s only due to extensive synchronization and much more accurate timekeeping. Modern extremely high quality mechanical watches today are only accurate to something like +/-5 seconds per day. If you wear one for months it may be off by minutes. Today’s quartz watches are accurate to something like 1 second a year (for really good ones), but those didn’t exist back in timetable railroad days.