Metroliner telephone article 4061

Maybe initially, but once P wire was debugged, there was no reason to retain it. The metros also were built as pairs (Budd was advocating unit trains at the time), meaning that the ends had to have a silly extending bellows arrangement due to their pointy design, which was motorized, and no doubt added to weight. They also had a mbuttive propulsion system, unrealistically high gearing (well over 150mph), etc etc etc. It wasn't the car Budd envisioned in the mid 60's, except in the basic look, and even that was different from the origional conceptual drawings. I suspect they wanted to use Pioneer III trucks, but even the Silverliner II didn't use the actual PIII design, which had right angle drive and high speed motors, outboard disc brakes, and hollow axles (though the latter 2 were provided on the SL II units, as they were very successful on the SL Is). Budd was almost fanatical about light weight in the 50's and 60's, believeing that the lower costs and higher performance it brought would be the only rational way to end the money drain pbuttenger rail was by then.

When was this? I seem to recall that Westrex was a popular type of early stereo cutting head, and that it was a Western Electric product.

They pop up everywhere because so many Trimlines were made. And every one came with one. I don't think those little units ever failed (though they DID have a recall on one or two, once). Any home older than 30 or 40 years around here most certainly has one in the basement - most people don't know what it's for, it's hooked to the phone line, and they figure better to leave it plugged in than disturb it and mess up their phones. I took me until college and researching online to figure out what it did and try unplugging the one in our basement. The world didn't end and now we've got one laying in a parts box somewhere....

Sounds about right. There's a famous manual about floor sweeping they put out once for their janitors...

Yes, I think it is a 302 I wish I could plug it into the system at work, since i never can tell when it's my phone ringing, but i can't since it's a digital weird system and I can't get to my voice mail with a rotary anyway...

On the HBLRT startup of Bergenline ave, we actually wore out the phone in one room from being on it 8-10 hours at a time, talking to people around the system for testing. The thing basically up and died after a month or so of heavy use.

Old RCA studio gear was like that too - their cameras were very heavy and overbuilt....

I wish someone would still make a tough phone. I bet there'd be a good market for it.

Interestingly, I've read that as recently as the late 80's, a few very rural areas in the US had *no* dial phone service, rather, picking up the phone got you an AT&T operator at the other end. Yet you can still call anywhere in the world.

On the other hand, I've heard the French phone system used to at one time play a tone after you dialed so you could tell the system was still switching your call and didn't get stuck. This seems crazy - even in the 70's, long distance calls in the US connected in barely a few seconds...