Connections Museum
4.9 (330)museum
4.9 (330)
Volunteers keep a working panel-and-crossbar central office from the mechanical era of the phone network in service, a Sunday tour at a time.
Description
The building on East Marginal Way still works as a central office: banks of Panel and No. 1 Crossbar switches step a call through the same sequence a dial tone followed before digital exchanges. Volunteers run the frames on tours, then walk visitors past switchboards, test desks, telegraph and teletype gear, and outside-plant displays of poles, cable, and splicing tools. Visitors can try placing a call under docent guidance, so the route between two handsets stops being abstract. A quick pass takes an hour; a visitor with a technical bent can stay three. The collection began as the Herbert H. Warrick Jr. Museum of Communications and now runs under the Telecommunications History Group.