N&W telephone "block" lines

[NW Mailing List]

I would like to know how the wayside telephone circuit for was connected with stations and towers.  On some railroads, the "block" line spanned the entire sub-division.  A set of code rings --long and short turns of a magneto-- identified a station to be called along the party line.  On other railroads, the "block line" might run the some or all of a subdivision, but each open office would break the party line into shorter segments.  When closed, the office would patch the party line through its office, so that it extended between two open office.  To call whatever open office there was to the north or east, one might sent one long ring.  The call for the open office to the west or south might be two short rings.  The advantage in subdividing the block line is that there could be concurrent use among the segments
 
Would anyone know which of these applied to the N&W?  A reason is that if the practice was to split the line while an office was open, there was a ringer on the west/south end of the line and another for the east/north end of the line.  The two ringers had different tones so the operator would know which line was calling.  A "block line" that ran through an office while it was open only had one ringer on the line.  The operator listened for their code ring to answer, or would use a code ring to reach another office.
 
Best wishes to all for the holidays,
 
Frank Scheer
f_scheer at yahoo.com
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