For centuries, time was reckoned in relation to the span of a day, whose link to natural rhythms and to the pace of walking was perceptible. Travelling still left room for pauses and for the unexpected. In the 19th century, with the replacement of the span of a day by the duration of an hour as the measure of time, a true revolution in the space-time dimension of life, the rhythms of life as lived started to fall under the purview of the hour. The gradual acceleration of transportation speed transformed a day’s travel by coach into an hour’s travel by train. Schedules imposed new forms of precision in relation to the speed of a gallop and then to the speed of a locomotive. Counting in minutes started to spread, with the generalisation of watches and train-schedules, within the transportation networks and public clocks. The train-station thus became the locus for the synchronisation of collective time, establishing punctuality as an imperative.