Laid back time before area codes and phone exchanges.

When I was young my aunt was a phone board operator for Bell Telephone. We had party lines, and phone numbers not as short as the one shown on the building but no area codes. Simple times and fond memories.

When I was a child you asked the operator for Patchogue 7 to get the taxi company in town.

Grandparents had this old bell telephone. The receiver itself weighed more than the phones we had that pre-ceded cell phones. The party line was still active in the late 70's. What a pain!

You guys are old.  LOL!  Just kidding.  My dad for years referred to the car dealership as "Hemlock 5000".

@MartyE posted:

You guys are old.  LOL!  Just kidding.  My dad for years referred to the car dealership as "Hemlock 5000".

Too funny...our telephone exchange name when I was a young kid was HEmlock. As I recall, many of the local exchanges were "vegetation" names...Hemlock, Juniper, Dahlia, Evergreen.

Ours was HArrison.  My great aunt, who had lived in the same house since prior to WWII, never did get the hang of using digits.

...My dad for years referred to the car dealership as "Hemlock 5000".

My grandparents numbers were Chapel4 8495 and Hillside2 9309, my parents were Ludlow6 8993(1960).

Party lines were fun, you could pick up the phone and listen in on neighbors conversations,  they were also a pain when you really needed to use the phone.

Number Pul-ee-uz.

    -- TYler Eight Nye-un Three Nye-Un Nye-Un

         or how about

   -- PEnnsylvania Six Fy-Uv Thousand

The operator's pronunciation was as distinct for the telephone as the NATO alphabet is to military radio.

Except maybe for this one:

-- CHeh-wee Twee Twee Twee Twee

Mike

@MartyE posted:

You guys are old.  LOL!  Just kidding.  My dad for years referred to the car dealership as "Hemlock 5000".

I grew up after prefix numbers became all the rage. In the case of Hemlock 5000, were the first 3 letters, Hem, the prefix? Or did Hemlock indicate something else?

Steve

Ours was OLympic!  And yes, it was a party line shared with some very chatty people!

My first telephone was in the Prospect exchange.  (El Paso, Texas)  (1955)   Not a party line.

Our phone number was Manteca 583-22.  Manteca the city, 583 was the line, and 22 was the ring (2 longs and 2 shorts).  Our neighbors ring was 13. If you were at a neighbors house and you heard your ring you answered their phone. There were10 customers per line most who spoke a different language.

@RideTheRails posted:

I grew up after prefix numbers became all the rage. In the case of Hemlock 5000, were the first 3 letters, Hem, the prefix? Or did Hemlock indicate something else?

Steve

The first two letters of the exchange name translated to the first two numbers of the exchange prefix.  Once the installed telephone base grew big enough then a third number was added to the prefix.

For example:

  LUdlow xxxx became LUdlow y-xxxx  which became LUy-xxxx which became, and remains to this day, 58y-xxxx.

Call up the phone keypad on your smartphone as if you're about to dial.  You'll find that the letters are still present, in a small font, on the number keys.

Mike

My aunt prior to going into a nursing home about 10 years ago had a party line out on her farm, $7 per month. However all the others on it had switched to private lines, $28 per month. Hence, in effect, she too had a private line. Every so often the phone company would call her trying to sell her a private line. Her response was, "I might be old but I'm not stupid."

Since there's been little so far in this thread to tie it into trains, I'd like to take a stab at it.

When coming out of college, I joined Ford Motor Co. as a new employee and received a desk and I also got a phone that came with it.

I found out that the last physical exchange in the Detroit area before Bell/AT&T's telephone's exchange concept became obsolete was inside a building in the middle of the greater Ford property in Dearborn that was built in the late 60's.

The exchange name it was given was "FAirborn", a combination of the words "Fairlane" and "Dearborn".  The prefix in number form is 32y-xxxx, and my phone had a number in this range.

Dearborn is obvious.   Fairlane might not be.

Fairlane was the name Henry Ford gave to his sprawling estate, located in Dearborn, and now part of the University of Michigan-Dearborn.  Fair Lane is also at the same time the name of the street upon which the estate is situated, and reportedly also the name of the little road in Ireland upon which his ancestors' farm was located.

Finally, to the train part.  Fairlane is the name of his private varnish as well, a heavyweight railcar he had built for his use in the heyday of his empire.

An O Gauge example was made and can still be found:

    K-Line 4485-0019IC

Good thread.

Mike

My folks wall phone on Long Island was Locust - LO 1XXXX. I remember as a kid trying the use the finger dial and screwing up about 6 times before I got the number I was calling right.

We had a party line.  Our number was 121, ring was two longs and a short.  When I made a call, I picked up the receiver, turned the crank and said, “Mrs. Barton, this is Teddy.  Can I talk to my Dad?

Party lines, brings back old memories.  When I was a kid, I lived in upstate NY, a couple miles out of Watkins Glen.  We had a party line with about four other houses, we might have listened in on a few conversations...

@gunrunnerjohn posted:

Party lines, brings back old memories.  When I was a kid, I lived in upstate NY, a couple miles out of Watkins Glen.  We had a party line with about four other houses, we might have listened in on a few conversations...

I just live up the road in Waterloo.

Our exchange name back in the 60's was Walker

@Squonk posted:

I just live up the road in Waterloo.

Our exchange name back in the 60's was Walker

Those gray cells have died, I don't remember the exchange number we had.  I remember it had two letters and were mnemonic for a word, something like Maple I believe.  We moved out west to Utah in 1955, I was 12 at the time.

@gunrunnerjohn posted:

Party lines, brings back old memories.  When I was a kid, I lived in upstate NY, a couple miles out of Watkins Glen.  We had a party line with about four other houses, we might have listened in on a few conversations...

It was easy!  Just unscrew the microphone part of the handset, and the diaphragm assembly would fall out... then just lift the handset and listen.  No click or any indication anyone else was on.

@gunrunnerjohn posted:

Those gray cells have died, I don't remember the exchange number we had.  I remember it had two letters and were mnemonic for a word, something like Maple I believe.  We moved out west to Utah in 1955, I was 12 at the time.

In Utica, my grandparents were Redfield 5-1235 and my parents were Swift 7-0253.

Update; My dad just said my other grandparents were Randolph 3-3669.

Good times.

- Mario

As a kid in western Mass, ours was CH-urchill 9xxx.

I remember taking the train back to college and calling my parents collect and asking for myself to let them know I had arrived safely. Of course, they declined to accept the charges.

And who could forget Lily Tomlin as the 1940's telephone operator with the turned-up nose, pursed lips and nasaly tone, saying "Number, pleeeeease." 

In SE Ohio, our number was "Frontier 3-5369". I remember we were on a 6-party line back in the mid 50's.

Jeff

I remember when I was in grade school I'd pick up the phone and ask Mrs. Redford to let my mom know I was home.  Small town, well known parents, a mother who ran the local credit bureau (and was later a teacher), and oerators who knew everyone in the county by their voice.  

I was hurt once and called the doctor.  Before he got there (HOUSE CALLS!!!!) the operator had notified my parents, and Mrs. Van Sharr and Mrs Baird both beat the Doctor to my house.

Our number was 417B on a six party line.

Before we moved back to Utah we lived in Toppenish, Washington and we had one of two phones on our block.

I wasn't rare to have Mom tell me to go get Mrs. Kim, or Mr Parton, or Al Strom, or whoever was  called.

@ADCX Rob posted:

My grandparents numbers were Chapel4 8495 and Hillside2 9309, my parents were Ludlow6 8993(1960).

I'd forgotten about the party lines... we had a private line at home because my dad did a lot of business after hours, but we had a 8 party line at my grandmother's mountain cabin in the 1970's. By the 1980's, it was a 4 party line, but while I was staying with her during the summers, my girlfriend on a different lake was also on a 4 party line and it took 8 people to be off the line to call her. It was easier to just drive over there.

Anybody use a bobby pin to ground the mouth piece to the coin slot for a dial tone on the non metal corded pre 1960 coin phones?

Anyone work one of the steam engine telephones into their layout like a fenced in display?  It seemed to be some where between an 0 scale and an  S scale in size.