Skrunda Station clock was manufactured in 1931 at the Electromechanical Workshops of the Latvian State Railways in Riga. The clock was located in the station master’s work area, and its mechanism was connected to the clock on the platform, ensuring synchronised time on the platform and inside the station building.

The saying ‘punctual as a train’ is not unwarranted. Clocks, which adorn the waiting room and façade of any station building, ensure that trains arrive and leave on time and the passengers don’t miss their train. Meanwhile, the local people grew accustomed to regulating their watches by the train whistles, which were blown upon their arrival at the station. Every morning the station master would compare and set the time of the station clocks to ensure that they were synchronised with the correct time in the country.

Before the advent of railway traffic, people lived by the local or solar time, which was different in every town. Railways changed that. In the middle of the 19th century, Saint Petersburg time became the reference time for railways and telegraph systems throughout the Tsarist Russia. It was calculated by the formula To + Δ, where To was Greenwich time and Δ was the latitude of the Carskoje Selo Railway Station in Saint Petersburg, expressed in hours and minutes.

For the convenience of passengers, the first train schedules showed both the local and Saint Petersburg time. At the turn of the century, Saint Petersburg time was the only one used for schedules of long-distance routes, while the local time was additionally shown only for the arrival and departure times at termini.