LIVINGSTON Alex <lial@mac.com> writes:
I personally doubt that either experimentation with daylight saving in WA or its introduction in SA had anything to do with the genesis of this time zone. My hunch is that it's been around since well before 1975. I remember seeing it noted on road maps decades ago.
Thanks for mentioning this. In this case, I'd say a simpler assumption is that Eucla has been at UTC+0845 since the introduction of standard time in 1895, and that it has observed DST using Western Australia rules. Something like this: Zone Australia/Eucla 8:35:28 - LMT 1895 Dec 8:45 Aus CWST 1943 Jul 8:45 AW CWST It's still just a guess of course...
it would seem to be a tradition of the observatory, not the "family" that lives there, since the caretakers (as far as I know always a childless couple) are appointed and employed by some organising body
Yes, you're probably right. Still, we tend to not bother with single weather stations and the like (e.g., the weather station on the top of Mt. Washington in New Hampshire) so we'll probably omit this one for now. Anyway, thanks again. It is nice getting authoritative info like this. I did find one copy of the minutes of the ordinary meeting of council in the Shire of Dundas, which used the phrase "EUCLA TIME" to refer to the time zone in question. See <http://www.dundas.wa.gov.au/council/public_documents/2005%20minutes/3septemb...>.