When the railway arrived in Sweden in the 1850s, each city had its own local time, simply following the sun. The railway's need for precise time led to the introduction of a common clock on the railway, known as railway time, and eventually, Sweden adopted national time.

Local time was not an issue in old rural Sweden. When the sun was at its highest, it was truly 12 o'clock. This meant that when it was 12:00 in Gothenburg, it was simultaneously 12:12 in Hallsberg and 12:24 in Stockholm. Travel time by horse and carriage often didn't need to be measured more accurately than in the number of days.

However, with the railway's new speeds and well-planned schedules, a completely new need for a common time arose. Alongside local times, a common railway time for all of Sweden was introduced, based on Gothenburg's local time. Some station clocks were equipped with two-minute hands: one for local time and one for railway time. In other places, time difference tables were used for conversion between local time and railway time.

The system of local time gradually became outdated and cumbersome. On January 1, 1879, at the request of the Royal Railway Board, Sweden transitioned to a common national timekeeping, known as civil time.

In 1900, Sweden adopted the normal world time with 24 time zones based on Greenwich in London. Since Sweden's civil time had been based on international map coordinates, the change only involved a fine-tuning of 14 seconds.