Interesting 746 in the For Sale Section.

[ThePillenwerfer]

I see Station X is offering an Ivory 746 for sale which as a couple of points of interest.

Firstly I've never seen a dial label which included 151 Repair Service.

Also the BT plug is transparent, rather than white, and has a lever which would seem less prone to getting snapped off.

[Station X]

The dial label dates from 1983 or earlier.

I would point out that the cord is a recent acquisition. I agree that the lever is less likely to be snapped off.

[Pellseinydd]

Not that unusual.
See attached.

What about the Wolverhampton label ?
What's unusual with the Northwich label ?

[russell_w_b]

Originally Posted by Pellseinydd

What about the Wolverhampton label ?
What's unusual with the Northwich label ?

In Whitehaven, Cumbria, you used to dial 8081 for the Speaking Clock. In Workington the code for neighbouring Whitehaven was 91, and to get the speaking clock from Workington was 918081.

I don't recall it being put on dial labels though.

[emeritus]

The Northwich exhange was probably one where the phones had no dial and you used to have to ask the operator to connect you. The local exchange at Shenfield (Kestrel I think) was like this until a new exchange covering Brentwood and the local exchanges of its its surrounding villages was built in the early 1970's. Public phone boxes had a red button on the wall that you had to press to get the 999 service.

[Pellseinydd]

Originally Posted by emeritus

The Northwich exhange was probably one where the phones had no dial and you used to have to ask the operator to connect you.<snip>.

Northwich was automatic at the time, just that the label was from an extension on a PMBX. It is something-else that is unusual with the label!

[russell_w_b]

Is it because the Northwich code uses first three letters like director exchanges did? And is it a non-director exchange?

[ThePillenwerfer]

I'd say the same as Russell.

[russell_w_b]

Or is it because the STD code for Northwich was 0606 (0-NO-6), like STD codes used to be described when they first came out: Workington was 0900 (0-WO-0) and Whitehaven 0946 (0-WHN) and Northwich just happened to emphasise this on the dial?

I've seen contemporaneous newspaper advertisements for hotels, etc..., where the letters were emphasised as part of the new-fangled STD code, but never on the disc itself.

But I see R is a 7, and I note that a 7 has been drawn in as the first digit of the number. So some discrepancy there. But is it something along those lines (no pun intended)?

[ThePillenwerfer]

I've seen that for Sheffield, ie 0SH2 xxxxx. I've never seen it as 0SHD though.

I've only just twigged that the 2 would represent the final D is Sheffield; I'd always assumed that the final figure was simply to differentiate it from other SH places. It doesn't always seem to fit though, I can't see how a W, X or Y would be relevant to Rotherham, 0RO9, unless it was Rotherham, Yorkshire.

Come on, Ian, you're the expert.

[Station X]

The Wolverhampton label is from extension 80?

The Northwich label dates from the days when it was a manual exchange? Hence the need to lift the handset to contact the operator for all calls. I don't think dial centre labels in director areas such as London and Liverpool ever emphasised the three letters of the director code, so it would have been Belgravia or BELGRAVIA, not BELgravia. Why the NORthwich label is like that I don't know. Something to do with Northwich being on the fringe of the Manchester director area?

[Pellseinydd]

Originally Posted by russell_w_b

Is it because the Northwich code uses first three letters like director exchanges did? And is it a non-director exchange?

It is an error - Northwich was a Non-Director exchange but for some reason it has been set out as a Director area number. It isn't even adjacent to the Manchester Director area.

[Station X]

Do you have an example of a dial label from a director area where the first three letters of the exchange name are bolded caps? I don't recollect seeing one in London or Liverpool.

The exception may have been HEAdquarters 01-432-XXXX

[Pellseinydd]

Originally Posted by ThePillenwerfer

I've seen that for Sheffield, ie 0SH2 xxxxx. I've never seen it as 0SHD though.

I've only just twigged that the 2 would represent the final D is Sheffield; I'd always assumed that the final figure was simply to differentiate it from other SH places. It doesn't always seem to fit though, I can't see how a W, X or Y would be relevant to Rotherham, 0RO9, unless it was Rotherham, Yorkshire.

Come on, Ian, you're the expert.

The code consisted of the '0' access digit followed by what were referred to as the A, B and C digits - prior to 'All figure numbering' which started circa 1965/66, the A & B digits were shown as letters for by the numerical C digit. The digit tended to be allocated starting with the digit 2 for the largest exchange i.e. CArdiff was 0CA2/0222, CAmbridge 0CA3/0223, but the next numerical was Aberdeen 0AB4 because the numerical equivalent. was 0224! Through to 0BA9/0229 BArrow in Furness. Some 'letter' codes were a bit more ingenious! For instance Newton in Powys was 0NT6/0686 as all the 0NE /063 codes had been used up. 1 and 0 were used as a last resort for the C digit - 0BA1 was a group of exchange surrounding BAth (0224) and 0BA0 was another group surrounding Cambridge (0223).

Hope that helps a bit?

[Station X]

There were contrived ones like SKYport for Heathrow and TERminus which I think was Euston.

[russell_w_b]

Originally Posted by ThePillenwerfer

I've seen that for Sheffield, ie 0SH2 xxxxx. I've never seen it as 0SHD though.

I expect it's the same old problem of being constrained to three letters max, yet providing a unique code that bears a relationship to the name the letters represent.

Same as BBC transmitter site identification codes: DVL = DarVeL; SL = SandaLe; WST = WeSTerglen, etc... There were exceptions where non-name-inclusive letters were added to differentiate between a TV (UHF) site and an MF site in the same location.

Perhaps fishing boats too?

[ThePillenwerfer]

Thanks, Ian. Very interesting as always.