Ball is releasing a new watch. The Engineer Master II Big Boy, named after a locomotive on the Union Pacific Railroad, will be a limited release of 999 pieces. The stainless steel case measures 46mm x 13.3mm with an AR-coated sapphire crystal. The movement is Swiss automatic ETA caliber 2836-2 with 25 jewels.
Ball watches are Swiss made but the company has a uniquely American heritage. Webster C. Ball, founder of the Ball Watch Co. of Cleveland, Ohio was the driving force behind the development of an extremely accurate class of watches approved for railroad service. In 1891 after a fatal train accident in Ohio Ball was appointed Chief Inspector of the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railroad to investigate the industry’s timekeeping practices and formulate inspection standards. Eventually Ball’s standardization policies were in place across 125,000 miles of track in North America.
In 1893 Ball contracted with Elgin, Hamilton, Hampden and other watch companies to provide watch movements that met his strict standards. He inserted the movements from these manufactures into high quality cases that bore the name of the Ball Watch Company on the outside. By 1908, the Ball Watch company was furnishing high-grade pocket watches to over 100 different railroad systems. Eventually Elgin, Hamilton, Waltham and all the other watch manufacturers of that era produced and sold watches to railroad men that conformed to the set of standards that Ball established.
