In India, West End watches proved their excellence in their use from the end of the 19th century by all the staff of the main railway companies, the post and telegraph offices, the police, the ports and the Indian and British government administrative services.
At one time, West End watches were a household name in India, and I grew up in Mumbai (formerly Bombay) walking past the monolithic West End Watch Company building near the CST Station (formerly V.T.) in the fort area. My earliest memories of train travel on IR in the late seventies and eighties, through to the nineties, revolve around huge station clocks with the legend "West End Watch Co., Bombay and Calcutta" printed in bold across the face. My family used to own several West End watches that are still among our treasured family heirlooms.
From the latter part of the 19th century, until the advent of cheaper quartz clocks in the 1980s, West End Watches were the standard supplier of clocks and watches to the pre-independence Indian railway companies, notably:
- The East Indian Railway (EIR)
- The North Western Railway (NWR)
- The Madras Railway
- The Bengal-Nagpur Railway (BNR)
- The Jodhpur-Bikaner Railway
- The Eastern Bengal Railway (EBR)
- The Assam-Bengal Railway (ABR)
- The Darjeeling Himalayan Railway
- The Oudh and Rohilkhund Railway (ORR)
- Rohilkhund and Kumaon Railway
- Bengal and North-Western Railway
- Assam Railway and Trading Company
- Calcutta Port Commissioners Railway (CPCR)
Post-independence Indian Railways also used West End clocks to keep time, and these clocks from all periods of the railways in India can still be seen on many stations and sheds over the system (I found a really vintage one in full working order at the Calcutta Tram Company - CTC's - Gariahat tram depot, and newer examples from the 1980s the Central Railways Mumbai division stations, and over the South-Eastern railways networks. Doubtless many hundreds - or thousands - more exist over the vast Indian Railways network. They were also standard equipment for all the major government departments.
A vintage Indian Railways poster for the West End Watch Co.
Back page of an old West End Watch Co catalogue showcasing most of the Indian Railways companies to whom the West End Watch models were marketed to.
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