I never thought of it, but E is eminently sensible for a connection to the Bell system. At West Pittston, at the station fonebox and the one on York Avenue, there was a knife switch just over the fone. If u turned it one way, it said DISP'R, other way was MSG or message wire. AND here's a tidbit for u DL men........Coming from the ERIE side, first time I went to the depot to use the fone, I just put on the headset & cranked the magneto. The old operator quickly told me to say "WAITING" and if nobody came on and said "Kingston" or "Bloomsburg", or whatever you could ring the operator in Scranton, but God help u if u cranked the thing while the Kingston yardmaster or roundhouse clerk was on the line. Hey, Bob, did they have this custom on the M&E too? I never had occasion to use the fones down there. Walt Smith> From: mnmang_@_comcast.net> To: erielack@lists.railfan.net> Subject: RE: (erielack) DL&W Signal> Date: Tue, 4 Mar 2008 15:11:11 -0600> > Walt,> > I'm not sure how they were connected, but my employee timetable shows three> kinds of phones: "Di" for Dispatchers Telephone Line; "E" for Exchange> Telephone Line; and "L" for local telephone line. I would suspect that the> Exchange line would be connected to the Bell System, and the Local would> just be around Buffalo, in this case. There are no telephones at spots other> than stations in the Buffalo Division that were only "E" lines. Lots of> "L's", and a lot of "E-Di" phones.> > Michael Mang> > > the key to summon the operator. The outside phonebox which > > reposed on the trackside wall of the WP depot had a large, > > black 'T' in a circle but it was more blocky than the one in > > Buffalo. Since that one is referred to as 'local', is there a > > chance that it's connected to the city phone system rather > > than the Company phones??> > > > Regards,> > > > Walter E. Smith - Employee # 102156> From: > > > The Erie Lackawanna Mailing List> http://EL-List.railfan.net/> To Unsubscribe: http://Lists.Railfan.net/erielackunsub.html _________________________________________________________________ Need to know the score, the latest news, or you need your HotmailŪ-get your "fix". http://www.msnmobilefix.com/Default.aspx The Erie Lackawanna Mailing List http://EL-List.railfan.net/ To Unsubscribe: http://Lists.Railfan.net/erielackunsub.html ------------------------------
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