Yes Morturn, pressing the button 'earthed' the line which let the exchange know which party was calling for billing purposes. Party lines were to solve the problem of shortage of lines in the cable and was only a temporary measure until more pairs were available I was an engineer for 34 years and still remember the problems caused when the party line got 'reversed' during maintenance. Eric
I was going to say BBC Midland Home Service but I thought there might be one or two people on this forum who would not have known what I was talking about.1965 Home Service!
Now this is not a picture of a chap up a pole in Birmingham, but there has been discussion on some threads of telegraph poles, and also Health and Safety.
For those ex GPO, Post Office Telephones and BT this the way it is today
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Mmmm that is a very old , dodgy looking pole
doris day and rock hudson had same trouble in pillow talk. i thinkwe had a party line during the 60s but not for very long as it was not private...if you were the nosey type you could listen in to the other persons calls
lyn
Dialing the 'wrong' number to get the 'right' person on a party line reminds me of the small model telephone system in the Museum of Science and Industry in Newhall Street. There was a glass-fronted cabinet that let you watch the works and on either side was a telephone. A small notice by each telephone told you what number to dial, say 639. Inevitably someone would pick up that phone and call out to their companion standing by the other telephone, "My number is 639, what's yours?", i.e. exactly the same way as a 'real' system works, but not the display model!
Incidently Kidderminster Railway Museum has a nice little working exchange but here you DO have to ask "What's your number?"!
We called it 'Fox and Geese', one fox that could go forward and back and four geese that could only advance. There was a control knob that slid in a 'St Andrews cross' cut-out. Wasn't there a futuristic counter display across the gangway that used Dekatron tubes, a neon-like glow that stepped around a ring of electrodes?I too remember that display. It was right next to the fox and rabbit game, made from ex post office telephone parts.