Mine telephones? · AditNow Community

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NickPeak
50.2% (Neutral)
Newbie Topic Starter

15 years ago

The Peak District Mining Museum has recently acquired a few industrial telephone units made by Plessey. They have a hard black heavy-duty non-metallic case, with lugs for wall mounting, containing handset, dial and magneto, but do not appear to have any safety certification.
There is a plate showing the following (sorry I don't have a picture):

Plessey Telecoms Ltd
Auto/Magneto, Auto
Magneto Telephone
668/1/00005 TYPE
CODE 668/1/00252/002
(Plessey symbol) M&Q SIG APP No 52

Does anyone recognise this? Could 'M&Q' mean 'mines & quarries'? Do they need an external power source? Could we easily rig up a pair at the museum?

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Morlock
50.2% (Neutral)
Newbie

15 years ago

"NickPeak" wrote:
Could we easily rig up a pair at the museum?

As far as I can gather the magneto only supplies power for ringing the other 'phone but requires a cell or battery for speech transmission.

derrickman
50.2% (Neutral)
Newbie

15 years ago

most mine phones and tannoys are self-contained affairs with no other cabling, mainly for gas-proofing reasons. There are versions which can be plugged into external power supplies to keep the battery permanently charged up, you sometimes see these in civil engineering tunnelling where gas is not an issue.

''the stopes soared beyond the range of our caplamps' - David Bick...... How times change .... oh, I don't know, I've still got a lamp like that.

staffordshirechina
50.2% (Neutral)
Newbie

15 years ago

There are piles of those phones at Magpie.
Ask PDMHS members Andy Gillings or Mike Luff about wiring.
They are both colliery electrical engineers and did the wiring for Temple mine.
As I understand them, those phones require an internal battery for speech and the magneto for ringing. There is already an iron mine phone in the museum that uses the same principle and can be directly connected to those more modern black ones.

Les

Graigfawr
50.2% (Neutral)
Newbie

15 years ago

"NickPeak" wrote:
The Peak District Mining Museum has recently acquired a few industrial telephone units made by Plessey. They have a hard black heavy-duty non-metallic case, with lugs for wall mounting, containing handset, dial and magneto, but do not appear to have any safety certification.
There is a plate showing the following (sorry I don't have a picture):

Plessey Telecoms Ltd
Auto/Magneto, Auto
Magneto Telephone
668/1/00005 TYPE
CODE 668/1/00252/002
(Plessey symbol) M&Q SIG APP No 52

Does anyone recognise this? Could 'M&Q' mean 'mines & quarries'? Do they need an external power source? Could we easily rig up a pair at the museum?

Yes, 'M&Q' stands for Mines & Quarries; the 'App. No. 52' indicates the official approval certificate number for this model of equipment. Somewhere in HSE archives should be the approval certificate, details of tests, etc.