THG- My Local......Telephone Exchange

My Local... Telephone Exchange
		Once upon a time, not so very long ago... Most villages were served by a Unit Automatic Exchange (typically a UAX12) which was housed in a small brick building rather like the one in the photograph. As the number of subscribers increased, a larger (UAX13) exchange was built next to the original and everything in the garden was neat and tidy...
UAX buildings A & B1 types		List page topics
Unit Automatic Exchange buildings were sometimes faced with red brick, but often locally available materials were used and much effort was made to match the surrounding architecture. Thus these small buildings tended to blend into the rural landscape and could be quite unobtrusive. A typical UAX12 was housed in an 'A' type building of internal dimensions 14' 0" by 7' 7" ( '= feet, "= inches). 'B' type buildings were 19' 0" by 10' 6", but were superseded by the 'B1' type (21' 0" by 14' 0") to permit the racks to be arranged in 3 rows and to allow for more growth. UAX's were often unheated, so the cavity wall design helped to minimise heat loss. UAX's were often referred to as Unattended Automatic Exchanges as they were designed to operate without intervention for long periods. A remote check on UAX12 & 13's could be made by dialling a test number and if all was OK, inverted Ring Tone would be returned. Under fault conditions, the tone would change to Number Unobtainable.

Over the years, many events conspired to bring about the demise of the local rural exchange:-
A greater concentration of population requiring larger exchanges. Improved line plant leading to longer lines. More linked-numbering schemes, bringing about the loss of exchange name identities, making it easier to absorb a nearby exchange into a larger one.
	A derelict rural exchange
Page Topics
My Local...	Local Histories
The Future of...	History of the Telephone Service in Bristol
...Main Exchange	Fifty plus in Colchester
...Rural Exchange (above)	Folkestone Telephone Exchange
...Town Exchange	History of Hull Telephone Department
~	The first telephone in Northampton
On Site Links	Off Site Links
Mobile Exchanges	~
What is Strowger?	Rural Telephone Exchanges of the South Midlands

My Local ... Exchange... in Town
Of course, in towns, your local exchange is more likely to have been a small to medium sized Non-Director Strowger (NDS) which as modernisation progressed, or old age set in, would have been replaced by a TXE2.
	Small to medium Non-Director Strowger exchanges would have had engineering staff on duty all day with a call-out rota for prompt alarms during the night and weekend periods. Most TXE2s would have been un-manned.
Small to medium exchange buildings
	The 'D' type building was 63' 0" by 24' 6" internally, built on a plot size of 85' by 50'. It incorporated, a staff room, toilet and store room. The slightly larger 'D1' type used a different internal layout on a plot size of 85' by 60'.

A vital link in the cable network was the repeater station... As the telephone service continued to grow, carrier and coaxial transmission systems required differing repeater spacings and so a range of building types was developed to house the vital amplifiers and ancillary equipment.
The R3 repeater station consisted of a central apparatus room with two small wings, one for use as a staff room, the other a battery room. The R3 building is approximately half the size of the earlier R2 design. Other repeater buildings were: R1, R4, R5, CRA, CR4, CR5 and CR6.
	A repeater station in an R3 type building
My Local ... Main Exchange
In a large town or city centre, the Linked Numbering Scheme usually took its name from the Main exchange which often also housed the Group Switching Centre for the area.
A large Group Switching Centre of brick construction. Some GSCs were additionally home to Auto-Manual Centres (AMCs) complete with a full compliment of switchboard operators, clerical staff and engineers. Again, the buildings were usually designed to harmonise with the local architecture.
	A large AMC/GSC

The Future of ...................................My Local
Nowadays, the smaller remote exchanges can be housed in a large cabinet on a tiny plot of land and require little or no maintenance. The days of each exchange having it's own dedicated staff to attend to faults is long gone. It is common for the extension block of an exchange to house the new equipment and for the larger main block to be leased out or sold off. Dr Beeching is alive and well !
		Could this be what the digital exchange technicians mean by the term " Remote Concentrator Unit ?"
Contents	Links	To call a Subscriber...
`Photos by Martin Loach` `Copyright © 1998-2007 THG and contributors`