On 02/04/2012 20:28, D7666 wrote:
Would you know if the British railway system ever had radio phones for
use by passengers as premier American trains did?

They were introduced at about the same time that the original analogue
cellular 'phones were starting to become generally available, but not
many people had them. The ones I saw, on the 125 mph Diesel High
Speed Trains, probably around the early to mid '80s took only BT
Phonecards, not cash.

Not sure but I think Bomo line 4Reps had them for a while in the RB.


Don't recall seeing them, the only on-board phones I came across were on
the WCML.

--
Graeme Wall
This account not read, substitute trains for rail.
Railway Miscellany at http://www.greywall.demon.co.uk/rail

wrote

I'm pretty sure Britain used exchange names as the US did. When did
Britain go to all number calling?

Outside London (and other large cities) exchange names lasted into the
1980s. However, the letters of the exchange name were not directly used in
dialling. Long distance calls used the national dialling code for the
exchange, but local calls to a nearby exchange could use a local code
instead, and calls to the same exchange still do not need the exchange code,
only the number.

Peter

On Apr 2, 6:56*pm, wrote:

It used to be the ticket agent at a US station would call the
dispatcher to get train status. *But now some won't bother.

The sort of stations we're talking about won't have any staff at all,
let alone a ticketing agent...

Neil

On Apr 2, 9:28*pm, D7666 wrote:

Not sure but I think Bomo line 4Reps had them for a while in the RB.

All 158s had them (it was a selling point of the "Alphaline" service,
but they were over a quid a minute so nobody bothered). I *think* as-
built Pendolinos and Voyagers did as well, but they were removed.
WCML Mk3s did as well. There was also a visible "car phone" style one
by the buffet of WCML Mk3s for staff use.

They used to run on Cellnet, I think.

Neil

On Apr 3, 1:14*am, Charles Ellson wrote:
On Sun, 1 Apr 2012 12:33:21 -0700 (PDT), Stephen Furley





wrote:
On Apr 1, 6:15*pm, wrote:
On Apr 1, 6:20*am, wrote:

*Letters on dials were originally to aid in dialing exchange names, eg
PEnnsylvania 6-5000 instead of 736-5000. *The US gradually
transitioned to "All Number Calling" by 1980.

I wrote a reply to this, but for some reason Google Groups won't allow
me to send it. *I'll try to send it as a reply just to you, which may
be better since it's quite long, and off-topic for this group.-

The above came through fine. *Not sure why google rejected your other
reply.

An email won't work. *This thread has already gone way off topic, so
it probably won't hurt to post it publicly. *Others may find it of
interest. *Maybe break it up into parts. *Thanks.

(Trains and telecommunications have many 'connections' in that they're
both common carriers, some of telephone technology is used for
signalling, and trains always have been heavy users of
telecommunications, including development of their own networks.)

Your post which I was trying to reply to is on Google Groups, in both
uk.railway and misc.transport.rail.americas, but does not appear in
either group in Giganews; I don't know what's going on.

The reply which I tried to send earlier was:

Somewhat different here. *0 was not used for the operator, at least
not in my time, the operator was 100. 0 was used for subscriber trunk
dialing. *I think 0 may have been used for the operator in the early
days, but that was before my time. *Normal GPO dials did not have the
word 'Operator' on them.

Older (pre-1950s?) ones did.

That's interesting, I've got serveral No. 10 dials which must be
pre-1950s, but none have the word 'Operator', and I don't think I've
seen one which did; how common were they? Most American dials do have
'Operator', including the WE dials on the 500, where it's printed in
such a way that it looks backwards.


0 is still used to call the local operator on PABX systems.

On small systems, larger systems sometimes used 01 (02 etc. being used
for inter-PBX calls) or 100 to extend the available numbering range.

Leaving aside some very early dials, and special ones for pre-payment
callboxes, test instruments etc. there were four main GPO dials, the
10, 12, 21 and 54a. *The 10 was used on candlesticks and early
Bakelite 'phones and was available in L (etter) and F (igure)
versions. *The L dial plate, *had only M and N on the 6 hole; O was on
the zero hole; there was no Q and no Z, *Later dials added the Q in
the zero hole.

Dials 10, 12 and 21 all used the same three-point fixing and could be
interchanged. Dials 54 (and 51) were manufacturers' designs with
simplified mechanisms which used a clamping ring to hold them (thus
could be replaced by the earlier types).

That's right, all could be mounted in models from the 150 candlestick
to the 300 series by this means. When mounted in the 706 a different
system was used, with a metal ring which clamped around the body of
the dial, held it place in the plone by two 'feet' fitting into slots
at the bottom, and a single screw at the top.

The 21 dial could also be fitted with a steel fingerwheel, with a
thicker spacer on the back of it, of the type used on the 10 and 12,
so it looked more like them when used as a replacement. The metal
fingerwheel was also used, always with a green dial plate, on the
standard payphone of the time.

The 21 was introduced for the new thermoplastic 706 'phone in 1959.

Early T.706s also used Dials No.12 which continued to be used for many
telephones supplied for railway use and optionally with PAXs.

A few very early 706s used the No. 12 dial, and also straight cloth
cords rather than the vinyl ones. One of these turned up on Ebay last
year, and was bought by somebody on the Classic Rotary Phones group
for a very good price. They also appear in some manufacturer's
literature of the time, but the vast majority of 706s were fitted with
21 dials.

Was the 51 the very similar lightweight plastic dial to the 54a, but
by a different maker? I've got the early dial version of the
ambassador, the bright yellow one, which is fitted with one of these
dials and that is fitted by means of four screws into the back of the
flange, so a different model of dial could not be fitted, unless you
drilled four small holes in it.

I've also got the (No. 25?) radioactive dial in a Trimphone, which
still has the glass tube in it, but I can no longer tetect any
radioactivity. I had three of the model 280 engineer's 'phones, with
the small dial mounted behind the receiver. I had to scrap one of
these when the rubber body turned to sticky black goo, so I've got a
spare dial, and various other parts. The other two 'phones of the
same model are still in good condition.

In message
, at
17:08:20 on Sat, 31 Mar 2012, remarked:
For our British posters, I have a question about telephone dials. Did
the letters* on British telephone dials always correspond to those of
US dials? How about those of other European countries?

1
2=ABC
3=DEF
4=GHI
5=JKL
6=MNO
7=PRS (Q added later.)
8=TUV
9=WXY (Z added later)
0 operator (US dials had a Z before 1950 but rarely used).

In the UK "Operator" is 100 on a landline, some other 3-digit code on
cellphones (varies from operator to operator - so much for standards!)

Some early Nokia Orange phones had 6=MN, 0=OQZ
--
Roland Perry

In message
, at
12:33:21 on Sun, 1 Apr 2012, Stephen Furley
remarked:
Your post which I was trying to reply to is on Google Groups, in both
uk.railway and misc.transport.rail.americas, but does not appear in
either group in Giganews; I don't know what's going on.

Google Groups broken for several days, and not propagating postings.
Started working again in the last 12 hours.
--
Roland Perry

In message , at 07:45:42 on
Tue, 3 Apr 2012, Charles Ellson remarked:
Fixed telephones outwith the "director
areas" (those like Greater London, Glasgow etc. which used the first
three letters of the exchange as the code and where the exchanges used
translation) did not have letters except by accident

I agree that (Inner) London Exchanges had three-letter abbreviations,
but very many provincial exchanges had two-letter abbreviations, plus an
index digit, as a mnemonic...

So Cheltenham was CH2 ( 0-24-2 )
Chichester was CH3 ( 0-24-3 )
Chester was CH4 ( 0-24-4 )
Chelmsford was CH5 ( 0-24-5 ) etc
--
Roland Perry

On Apr 3, 3:07*am, wrote:
On Apr 2, 8:39*pm, bobharvey wrote:

On Apr 1, 1:08*am, wrote: Did the letters* on British telephone dials always correspond to
those of US dials?

No, see below. *As far as I recall the US, Canada, & the Philippines
were the only ones who used the US system, but ICBW.

I heard some countries may have had the Q and O in different
positions.

we had O & Q on the zero. *Nice photo athttp://www.1900s.org.uk/1940s50s-domestic-phones.htm

Ok, so when cell phones came out widely, did Britain convert to that
scheme? *What about older landline Touch Tone and rotary phones--did
the dial ring have to be converted?

Sorry, I don't understand this; what does the introduction of cell
phones have to do with letters/numbers, and converting other 'phones?


I'm pretty sure Britain used exchange names as the US did. *When did
Britain go to all number calling? *(The last US city 'converted' in
1980, but it took a long time for old habits and signage to die.)
Then, businesses used the letters to give themselves memorable phone
numbers, such as TAXICAB.

Yes, we used to have exchange names in the number. For example, we
had an exchange called Abbey, the first three letters were part of the
number. The London Transport travel information service was 1234 on
this exchange, and would have been written as 'ABBey 1234. Until a
few weeks ago a hairdressers shop which I pass on my way to work still
had a sign which showed their number in this way, despite the fact
that this was phased out some time in the late '60s, I think. The
next version used '01' for London, followed by the old number with the
letters converted to digites. Since the 'A and the 'B' are both in
the 2 hole this number became 01-222 1234. If calling from within
London you did not need to dial the 01, but could if you wanted
to.Something over 20 years ago we started to run out of numbers, so
London was split into inner and outer, with the inner becomming 171
and the outer 081. Since the Abbey exchange was in inner London, the
LT number then became 071-222 1234. A few years later we were running
out of numbers again, so a '1' was added, and the number then became
0171-222 1234. Various other codes also gained a 1; 021 for
Birminghame 0121 and 0865 for Oxford became 01865 for example. The
final change (so far) was when inner and outer London were re-combined
as 020 with the 7 or 8 added previously added before the remaining 7
digits, so the LT number then became 020 8222 1234, and so it remained
until recently, when it went over to one of the new non-geographic
numbers, but the 1234 part still remains the same. Internationally
the number would be shown as +44 (0) 20 8222 1234; the 0 after the 44
would not normally be dialled if calling from overseas. Other digits
are now being used after the 020; our SIP trunks at work are a 020
3xxx xxxx number for example. This caused a problem at work a couple
of weeks ago. A user complained that some of her calls weren't going
through. She was calling a 020 8xxx xxxx number, but missing out the
leading 020. This would normally work, since our ISDN trunks are a
020 8xxx xxxx number, but would fail if the call happened to be routed
over the SIP trunks. I had to tweak the ARS on the telephone system
slightly to add the missing 020 digits back in if the number dialled,
was 98 followed by exactly 7 more digits and the call was routed via
SIP. The '9' above is to obtain an outside line, and is stripped off
before the call is dialled out.

Things like your TAXICAB example were not common here. The letters
letters were not put on later dial plates, or on the rings outside
them, after all-figure numbers were introduced, so many people
wouldn't have known how to dial them. Even in candlestick and
Bakelite days many instruments were fitted with the 'F' versions of
the 10 and 12 dials, which did not have letters on them.
Interestingly, I've got a modern Mitel 5304 IP telephone in front of
me. It has both a 'Z', on the 9 button, and a 'Q' on the 7 button,
whereas the 21L dial which I have at home added the Q to the 0 hole.

Before the 5304 Mitel made a similar IP model without a display, and
SIP only. The model number of this was 5302, which probably means
something to our older American readers; a very different telephone.

In uk.railway Adam H. Kerman twisted the electrons to say:
Yet, one of our friends from the UK tells us that "cell phone" is a term
that's sometimes used to distinguish the concept from "cordless phone",
as both types are mobile.

Not recently though ... None of the networks advertise "cell phones",
nor do the non-network specific retailers. It may have been used a
couple of decades ago, but it's certainly not in common usage now.

Or wireless phones. Using country-specific terminology likely wouldn't
have drawn comment if you weren't cross-posting to newsgroups for other
countries where that term _isn't_ used.
I haven't used country-specific terminology, Stephen. You're wrong.

You have though ... If you wandered into a pub in the UK and said you'd
lost your cell phone I suspect many/most (or maybe even all) of the
people there wouldn't know what you meant.
--
These opinions might not even be mine ...
Let alone connected with my employer ...