Two things to add:

One phone number in the 1964 PRR timetable as a "YL n-nnnn". The
phone company was experimenting was using two meaningless letters as
way to expand dialable codes; such as in Buffalo. This didn't catch
on, and they went to ANC instead.

Also, railroads and pipelines were two exempted businesses that Bell
would allow to own and maintain Bell telephone equipment due to the
difficulty of maintaining wayside equipment. The PRR owned a separate
long distance network, complete with toll testboards.

Some smaller railroads retained magneto local battery phones into the
1980s. They of course required periodic visits to replace the
batteries (No. 6 dry cells*), but the cells were designed for
intermittent use and lasted a long time (geez, today with alakaline
they could go many years).

*Do they still make No. 6 dry cells?



On Apr 7, 2:12*pm, wrote:
On Apr 7, 1:17*am, spsffan wrote:

Just out of curiosity, do you have any opinion regarding the service
and equipment quality of GTE/Automatic Electric vs. the Bell System/
Western Electric?
Having lived in GTE territory most of my life, with a couple of years in
Ma Bell territory in between, I'd say that the phones themselves were
equal.

Service was another thing all together. Things got so bad in the late
1970s that the city of Santa Monica considered giving GTE the boot in
favor of Pacific Bell. Admittedly, there was always a dial tone, but
noise on the lines was horrible, and getting any kind of service problem
taken care of was very slow.

Thanks for your comments.

Returning to rail for a moment, many railroads, streetcar lines, and
other industrial entities have AE built PAX--private automatic
exchange. *I think Bell was forbidden to sell such equipment except to
the military as a result of the 1950s consent decree. *Anyway, it was
common in railroad offices to see two telephones on a manager's desk--
A Bell set and an AE set (like an AE 40 which has a distinctive
look). *Some of those private networks were large with thousands of
stations (eg corner call boxes of a big city police department or
transit carrier).

GTE was the largest of the Independents. *In the 1970s many
Independent carriers had service problems like you describe. *The
Independents tended to be old step-by-step equipment because that was
most economical for the smaller exchanges of Independent territory and
it was a relatively simple design. *But SxS needs extensive
maintainence to work reliably and keep the noise down. *As equipment
aged or there was new population growth, many of the Independents did
not have the needed capital to properly upgrade their plant.

Another problem of the Independents was a lack of economies of scale.
Even a large carrier like GTE or United might only have only one
exchange in a region, the neighbors being Bell or a different
Independent. *In the 1980s there was an overdue effort to swap
exchanges to build contiguous service areas. *Also, building a pole
line or digging a conduit is expensive, and in Bell areas the cost
tended to be spread over many more customers.

Ironically, once ESS came down in price in the later 1980s the
Independents rushed to buy them, and in some cases were more up to
date than small town Bell exchanges. *One small town exchange manager
told me that ESS eliminated the need to expand the C.O. building and
was a big saving on maintenance costs. *A lot more can be done
remotely with an ESS community dial office than a SxS one, a big
saving since sending a man out to a remote CDO was expensive.

On 4/7/2012 6:26 PM, wrote:
Two things to add:

One phone number in the 1964 PRR timetable as a "YL n-nnnn". The
phone company was experimenting was using two meaningless letters as
way to expand dialable codes; such as in Buffalo. This didn't catch
on, and they went to ANC instead.

Also, railroads and pipelines were two exempted businesses that Bell
would allow to own and maintain Bell telephone equipment due to the
difficulty of maintaining wayside equipment. The PRR owned a separate
long distance network, complete with toll testboards.

Some smaller railroads retained magneto local battery phones into the
1980s. They of course required periodic visits to replace the
batteries (No. 6 dry cells*), but the cells were designed for
intermittent use and lasted a long time (geez, today with alakaline
they could go many years).

*Do they still make No. 6 dry cells?


Big snip.

I think they do. I actually seem to recall seeing one recently
somewhere. Home Depot? Radio Shack ?

For those who don't recall, these are the large batteries about the size
of a 16 oz. beer can, with two thumb screw terminals on top. They were
common for use with kids science kits and I seem to recall that we had
them in the chemistry and physics lab in high school. (late 1970s)

Of course, God only knows what the insides are these days. I think that
the brick shaped "lantern" batteries would serve the same purpose,
except that the No. 6 was 1.5 volts, like a common AA (or D or C or AAA
cell).

Regards,

DAve

On Sat, 07 Apr 2012 21:54:51 -0700, spsffan
wrote:

On 4/7/2012 6:26 PM, wrote:
Two things to add:

One phone number in the 1964 PRR timetable as a "YL n-nnnn". The
phone company was experimenting was using two meaningless letters as
way to expand dialable codes; such as in Buffalo. This didn't catch
on, and they went to ANC instead.

Also, railroads and pipelines were two exempted businesses that Bell
would allow to own and maintain Bell telephone equipment due to the
difficulty of maintaining wayside equipment. The PRR owned a separate
long distance network, complete with toll testboards.

Some smaller railroads retained magneto local battery phones into the
1980s. They of course required periodic visits to replace the
batteries (No. 6 dry cells*), but the cells were designed for
intermittent use and lasted a long time (geez, today with alakaline
they could go many years).

*Do they still make No. 6 dry cells?


Big snip.

I think they do. I actually seem to recall seeing one recently
somewhere. Home Depot? Radio Shack ?

For those who don't recall, these are the large batteries about the size
of a 16 oz. beer can,

That sounds like an (IEC number) R40, a fairly universal cell with old
UK railway and Post Office telephone equipment.
Try :-
http://www.estarspower.com/products_battery_r40.html
The non-domestic versions in the UK usually had a wired negative
connection and were latterly used to power the radios in PO/BT vans
more often than in telephone equipment.

Ah, confirmation it is the same :-
http://www.smallbattery.company.org.uk/sbc_en6.htm
12 quid each :-(

IBM seem to have rather confusingly (and unwisely as it is an
international standard number) chosen the same number for one of their
laptop batteries.

with two thumb screw terminals on top. They were
common for use with kids science kits and I seem to recall that we had
them in the chemistry and physics lab in high school. (late 1970s)

Of course, God only knows what the insides are these days.

Still zinc-carbon, I would not like to see what happens if an alkaline
version was short-circuited.

I think that
the brick shaped "lantern" batteries would serve the same purpose,
except that the No. 6 was 1.5 volts, like a common AA (or D or C or AAA
cell).

On Sun, 08 Apr 2012 07:02:43 +0100, Charles Ellson
wrote:

On Sat, 07 Apr 2012 21:54:51 -0700, spsffan
wrote:

On 4/7/2012 6:26 PM, wrote:
Two things to add:

One phone number in the 1964 PRR timetable as a "YL n-nnnn". The
phone company was experimenting was using two meaningless letters as
way to expand dialable codes; such as in Buffalo. This didn't catch
on, and they went to ANC instead.

Also, railroads and pipelines were two exempted businesses that Bell
would allow to own and maintain Bell telephone equipment due to the
difficulty of maintaining wayside equipment. The PRR owned a separate
long distance network, complete with toll testboards.

Some smaller railroads retained magneto local battery phones into the
1980s. They of course required periodic visits to replace the
batteries (No. 6 dry cells*), but the cells were designed for
intermittent use and lasted a long time (geez, today with alakaline
they could go many years).

*Do they still make No. 6 dry cells?


Big snip.

I think they do. I actually seem to recall seeing one recently
somewhere. Home Depot? Radio Shack ?

For those who don't recall, these are the large batteries about the size
of a 16 oz. beer can,

That sounds like an (IEC number) R40, a fairly universal cell with old
UK railway and Post Office telephone equipment.
Try :-
http://www.estarspower.com/products_battery_r40.html
The non-domestic versions in the UK usually had a wired negative
connection and were latterly used to power the radios in PO/BT vans
more often than in telephone equipment.

Ah, confirmation it is the same :-
http://www.smallbattery.company.org.uk/sbc_en6.htm
12 quid each :-(

IBM seem to have rather confusingly (and unwisely as it is an
international standard number) chosen the same number for one of their
laptop batteries.

with two thumb screw terminals on top. They were
common for use with kids science kits and I seem to recall that we had
them in the chemistry and physics lab in high school. (late 1970s)

Of course, God only knows what the insides are these days.

Still zinc-carbon, I would not like to see what happens if an alkaline
version was short-circuited.

P.S.
It seems someone does make an LR40 :-
http://cellpacksolutions.com/Search_...et.asp?ID=LR40
http://www.master-instruments.com.au.../LR40-EN6.html
but with a 48Ah capacity I'll leave the heavy current experiments to
someone else. ;-)

I think that
the brick shaped "lantern" batteries would serve the same purpose,
except that the No. 6 was 1.5 volts, like a common AA (or D or C or AAA
cell).

On Apr 8, 2:02*am, Charles Ellson wrote:

Still zinc-carbon, I would not like to see what happens if an alkaline
version was short-circuited.

Quite a sight when a zinc carbon type short circuited.

On 4/8/2012 4:37 PM, wrote:
On Apr 8, 2:02 am, Charles wrote:

Still zinc-carbon, I would not like to see what happens if an alkaline
version was short-circuited.

Quite a sight when a zinc carbon type short circuited.

I'm going to add, belatedly, that the pictures of the No. 6 batteries
that I see on Ebay (old batteries, not new stock) all have the word
"igniter" prominently displayed on them.

This naturally leads one to believe that they were intended to be used
as a source for a spark, to ignite gunpowder or some gas fuel or
vaporized liquid fuel.

It rather makes sense, as I seem to recall them mostly in science labs
and science experiment kits of the kind marketed to adolescent boys. I
seem to recall that my brother used one with a practice telegraph key,
which had a flashlight bulb to give feedback in learning Morse Code.
Stuff like that!

Regards,

DAve

On Apr 9, 12:50*am, spsffan wrote:

No. 6 batteries

It rather makes sense, as I seem to recall them mostly in science labs
and science experiment kits of the kind marketed to adolescent boys. I
seem to recall that my brother used one with a practice telegraph key,
which had a flashlight bulb to give feedback in learning Morse Code.
Stuff like that!

The "How & Why Wonder Book on Electricity" had projects for kids using
a No. 6 dry cell. They taught about series and parallel wiring.

I remember wrapping wire around a big nail to make an eloctromagnet,
and turning it off and on to pick up papercliops. But the nail
retained some of its magnetism.

I _think_ a battery cost about $1 back then and it would last
forever. The local store had all the knife switches, light sockets,
1.5V screw maps that I could want for my experiments. Connecting a 6V
lantern battery to a 1.5V burned it out in a flash.

Returning to rail, many places were lit by five bulbs in series off
the 600V traction power. If a bulb burned out they all did. But I
think some fancy trains had special circuits to bypass a dead bulb.

On Mon, 9 Apr 2012 07:19:19 -0700 (PDT), wrote:

On Apr 9, 12:50*am, spsffan wrote:

No. 6 batteries

It rather makes sense, as I seem to recall them mostly in science labs
and science experiment kits of the kind marketed to adolescent boys. I
seem to recall that my brother used one with a practice telegraph key,
which had a flashlight bulb to give feedback in learning Morse Code.
Stuff like that!

The "How & Why Wonder Book on Electricity" had projects for kids using
a No. 6 dry cell. They taught about series and parallel wiring.

I remember wrapping wire around a big nail to make an eloctromagnet,
and turning it off and on to pick up papercliops. But the nail
retained some of its magnetism.

I _think_ a battery cost about $1 back then and it would last
forever. The local store had all the knife switches, light sockets,
1.5V screw maps that I could want for my experiments. Connecting a 6V
lantern battery to a 1.5V burned it out in a flash.

Returning to rail, many places were lit by five bulbs in series off
the 600V traction power. If a bulb burned out they all did. But I
think some fancy trains had special circuits to bypass a dead bulb.

Parallel each lamp with a resistor that passes just enough current to
allow the surviving lamp filaments to produce a dull glow.

On 4/9/2012 7:19 AM, wrote:
On Apr 9, 12:50 am, wrote:

No. 6 batteries

It rather makes sense, as I seem to recall them mostly in science labs
and science experiment kits of the kind marketed to adolescent boys. I
seem to recall that my brother used one with a practice telegraph key,
which had a flashlight bulb to give feedback in learning Morse Code.
Stuff like that!

The "How& Why Wonder Book on Electricity" had projects for kids using
a No. 6 dry cell. They taught about series and parallel wiring.

I remember wrapping wire around a big nail to make an eloctromagnet,
and turning it off and on to pick up papercliops. But the nail
retained some of its magnetism.

I _think_ a battery cost about $1 back then and it would last
forever. The local store had all the knife switches, light sockets,
1.5V screw maps that I could want for my experiments. Connecting a 6V
lantern battery to a 1.5V burned it out in a flash.

Well, all that seems to jar memories! Yes, we did the electromagnet
trick and a few others.


Returning to rail, many places were lit by five bulbs in series off
the 600V traction power. If a bulb burned out they all did. But I
think some fancy trains had special circuits to bypass a dead bulb.

Oh, shades of tube radios with tubes of various voltages, in series,
adding up to approximately 120 volts. Most small table radios from the
1940s to the end of tubes used this format.

Regards,

DAve

On Apr 8, 2:02*am, Charles Ellson wrote:
*Do they still make No. 6 dry cells?
For those who don't recall, these are the large batteries about the size
of a 16 oz. beer can,
That sounds like an (IEC number) R40, a fairly universal cell with old
UK railway and Post Office telephone equipment.
Try :-http://www.estarspower.com/products_battery_r40.html
http://www.smallbattery.company.org.uk/sbc_en6.htm

Yes, that was them. But the Eveready units had plastic knobs atop the
screw terminals to avoid the risk of a short circuit if the battery
touched a metal surface.

I noticed one was made in China. A number of b&w film products are
now made in "emerging countries" since Kodak discontinued them.