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Re: History--special Panel dialing for manual and party lines.

There was a thread about this on the TCI list a few years ago. Steph

> Kerman, one of the regular TCI contributors, explained it as follows:

Thanks for the reference. You know, I'm a member of TCI, but I have no idea how to get into any of their online stuff. (Every time I try I can't get in). I get their paper edition of the newsletter and that's it.

So yes, a number such as "PENnsylvania 10240" was indeed dailable, the > cue to the equipment being the "1" as the fourth digit. But it would > have been listed as 3L+5D, not 2L+6D as you suggest.

NYC started off with 3L+5D, but soon switched to 2L+6D since they were running out of exchanges. I think when they switched the dial pulls stayed the same, that is, PEN- became PE 6-. In contrast, when Philadelphia had to switch for the same reason (after WW II), they dial pulls became different for almost every exchange. (ie WAL became WA 2, WAV became WA 4, and some exchanges completed renamed.)

As an aside, to this day, in the Philadephia official exchange charts, the original name still is used for the address code, that is, you will see "WAV" for everything in the WAverly district.

Apparently seven-digit numbers in the form "Main 1234 J" did exist > somewhere. Miller (McGraw Hill 1933) cites the following directory > listings in Figure 8, page 20:
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I just found out that they existed in Cinncinati in the 1931 panel conversion of Cherry Parkway. If the party letter was missing or wrong on a dialed call to a manual exchange, a signal would light for special operator attention.

Thanks again for the info.

Reply to
hancock4
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P.S.

Panel was designed for a 30 year lifespan. But in 1950 they added HY

9 in New York as a Panel exchange. Would anyone know why they didn't use #1 xbar or #5 xbar by that point? Was it to be compatible with the other gear?
Reply to
hancock4

Bell didn't thow out perfectly good equipment. It's possible that the panel in question was surplus from another site and moved to HY9.

Reply to
Rick Blaine

Panel did play nicely with SxS gear though so did Xbar systems.

I don't really know the reasoning but have a suspicion it was due to the profitability of NYTel.

Mother Bell favored her more profitable children more than those that weer less profitable. Hence the reason why all the metro area of RI was #1ESS and #5Xbar during the late 60's and 70's. Then of course during the early 80's they started in earnest on going all digital in RI but because of divestiture we ended up with Nortel DMS switches, and a few #

5ESS switches.
Reply to
T

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