Allow me to clarify. In the old days, most pay phones required a
> coin deposit first to make _any_ kind of call. The coin was held,
> and if the line was busy or no answer the coin was returned. (Some
> rural pay phones worked differently).
There were also prepay coin service in some larger manual exchanges. Postpay phones were common in smaller (rural?) exchanges.
In Ine late 1960s, partly in response to urban crime, pay phones
> were modified to be "dial tone first". No coin was required to dial
> the operator. If 911 was available, no coin was required for that
> either. The above mentioned NYT article said dial-tone-first was
> going in at the same time as 911 service.
> An additional benefit of dial-tone-first was that the caller up
> front would know if the pay phone was broken by not getting a dial > tone.
A further additional benefit was that you could make a credit card or collect call without having to deposit a coin. Important if you didn't have a coin available. Yes, it was rare, but credit cards (and I think collect) calls could be made with a credit card.
As to "keeping pay phones active to this day", here's how: Many
> passenger rail carriers want to provide an emergency telephone for
> people in distress at a station. There are various ways this could
> be done, but the cheapest way is to arrange to have a standard pay
> phone in the station (no coin is required to call 911).
> Since coin collections these days are low, the carrier usually has
> to pay the phoneco to have the phone, but that payment is cheaper
> than providing other types of emergency phones. In addition, those
> passengers who don't have a cell phone, as some today, have the
> convenience of a pay phone to make calls (I do see people using them
> from time to time.)
Who pays for the pay phones in Union or other stations used by more than one railroad?
Wes Leatherock snipped-for-privacy@aol.com snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.com