For half a year there is now summertime again

At both the deutsche bahn and the physikalisch-technische bundesanstalt (PTB) in braunschweig, everything went right. Many clocks have changed themselves during the night. Because the scientists at the federal physical-technical institute (PTB) in braunschweig program the time transmitter in mainflingen near frankfurt (main), which sends out the signal of the radio-controlled clocks. "Three atomic clocks in mainflingen have to agree on the time changeover so that a signal goes out," said dieter piester of the PTB on sunday. This year the three watches were again in agreement. If they ever disagreed, there would simply be no signal, piester said. "Better no signal than a wrong one."

There were no problems with the german railroads during the time changeover. "It was once again uncomplicated, like every year," said a railroad spokeswoman. The hands on some 120,000 clocks have flipped at deutsche bahn during the night. Not only the clocks on the platforms, but also the clocks in the service rooms, as well as in the automats and the information and control systems, pay for this. The adjustment of all these clocks takes about an hour.

Those who had to work until sunday morning had one hour earlier quitting time, the relief workers had to make do with one hour less sleep. According to medical experts, the time change is not good for the body. But at least the winter blues are gone, the first spring flowers are blooming, the bees are buzzing again and more birds are singing a concert in the early morning. On the last weekend in october, summer time will be over again. Then the clocks will be set back one hour and thus back to normal time in europe – except for russia: there, daylight saving time has been abolished.