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| Re: Today is fifty years since the big northeast blackout (1373991) | |||
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Re: Today is fifty years since the big northeast blackout |
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Posted by SelkirkTMO on Tue Nov 17 17:57:49 2015, in response to Re: Today is fifty years since the big northeast blackout, posted by AlM on Tue Nov 17 14:10:43 2015. I worked for Long Lines for a while. Many CO's in the city were still electromechanical frames before 5ESS replaced them all. Back in those days, the relays ate humongous amounts of power and in the event of a power failure, the "battery room" took over until generators could be cranked up. Running purely on battery, the average central office was good for about 4 hours on batteries before it all went dark.Since PSC required battery and dialtone, and the duration of the event was unknown, engineers shedded whatever loads they could to preserve the residential services. Pay phones weren't subject to the same regulations and so they were the first to have their switches cut off. Here's a picture of what a single crosspoint looked like in miniature - the original frames in a CO could be three stories high: 
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