Buffalo Dial Plan circa 1960

Curtis R Anderson
August 5, 2012

Abstract
Buffalo, New York was one of the last cities in the United States to convert from named exchange dialing to the seven digit dialing we are used to
today. Here is a look at what local calling in Buffalo looked like at the time
of the conversion.
This is a work in progress. Additions will be made as they are discovered.
Corrections and suggestions are always welcome.

Contents
1

Rationale

The Topology

Changing the Dialplan

Telephone Switch Types

List of Figures
1
2

Buffalo Dialplan Topology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Exchanges With Known Switch Types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

3
5

Rationale

As the nation emerged from World War II, demand for telephone service increased.
With it, people were moving away from their friends and family. Businesses were
expanding with the post-WWII economy, making more calls as necessary to support their expansion. As with radio, the fledgling medium television could share
1

space on the long distance microwave and coaxial telephone network [1, 2, 3], but
needed substantially more bandwidth than a radio program. This meant a need for
a more complex telephone network, which also allowed more and cheaper long
distance calling. Demand for long distance calling increased faster than operators
could be trained to perform functions such as getting the call information from the
caller, toll accounting, and returning time and charges. It became apparent that
the telephone user would have to dial his own long distance calls. This resulted in
the North American Numbering Plan [6, 4, 5]. With this, a need to dial ten digits
across the United States and Canada was realized.
Well into the late 1950s as customer initiated toll dialing was being deployed to
customers, some cities like Buffalo continued to use named exchange dialing for
local calls. A number such as UNiversity 23681 would be dialed. Such a number
could not be dialed directly by a customer, even one which could directly dial a
toll call. These calls would still be handled by the long distance operator, often
reached by dialing 211 or a similar service code. In this example, a caller in a city
like Chicago would call their long distance operator and ask to place a long distance
call to Buffalo. The operator in this case would access a toll trunk to Buffalo and
ask the Buffalo inward toll operator to dial UNiversity 2368 for the customer.
Neither the caller nor the outward toll operator needed to know anything about
the dial plan or topology of the location being called. It was becoming more apparent that some kind of standardization had to be established to make customer
dialed long distance calling a reality. New York City already had seven digit dialing. Mostly rural towns and villages had four or five digit dialing. Buffalo had
six digit dialing. To the east, Rochester had just converted from manual dialing
between about 1947 to 1955 to seven digit dialing after conversions mentioned in
3 on page 4.

The Topology

Figure 1 on the next page shows how the exchanges were converted from names
to numbers. The chart is grouped by central office location and subgrouped by
presumed switch type. The characters in typewriter face represent the Common
Language Location Identifier (CLLI) for the central office location, used today to
aid in identifying a location known as a rate center. Some of the exchange names
are not named by any type of local street or landmark in the vicinity of the central office, and instead follow the Bell System recommended exchange names [5,
1
The use of a telephone number ending in 2368 was common to distinguish a potentially fictitious number in a movie. It was common to describe someones telephone number as KLondike 5
2368 or even 5552368.

Grand Island
GDISNYGI
BRidge
RR 3 773
LUdlow RR 4 774

BuffaloHertel
BFLONYHE
DElaware TR 3
BEdford
TR 6
RIverside TR 5
VIctoria
TR 7

873
876
875
877

Tonawanda
TNWNNYTW
DUdley
NX 5
EVergreen NX 4
JAckson
NX 2
BuffaloMain
BFLONYMA
AMherst
TF 2
PArkside
TF 3
UNiversity TF 4
WIndsor
TF 5
CIrcle
TF 6
EXport
TF 8

695
694
692

832
833
834
835
836
838

BuffaloElmwood
BFLONYEL
ELmwood TT 2 882
GArfield
TT 3 883
GRant
TT 4 884
LIncoln
TT 5 885
SUmmer
TT 6 886
TUpper
TT 7 887

BuffaloBailey
BFLONYBA
BAiley
TX 4
FIllmore
TX 5
HUmboldt TX 2
KEystone TX 6
TAylor
TX 3

BuffaloFranklin
BFLONYFR
CLeveland
TL 2
WAshington TL 4
MAdison
TL 5
MOhawk
TL 6
NIagara
TL 7

BuffaloSouth Park
BFLONYSP
FAirview
TA 4 824
SOuth
TA 5 825
TRiangle
TA 2 822
WOodlawn TA 3 823

852
854
855
856
857

894
895
892
896
893

WilliamsvilleCayuga
WSVLNYNC
ATwater TF 9 839
OXford
NF 4 634
PLaza
NF 2 632
SPring
NF 3 633
Lancaster
LNCSNYLC
MUrray NT 4 684
REgent
NT 3 683
West SenecaUnion
WSNCNYUN
HObart NR 4 674
East Aurora
EAURNYEA
CYpress NL 2 652
NT 7 687
Orchard ParkSunset
ORPKNYST
IDlewood NN 2 662
Hamburg
HMBGNYHB
EMerson NH 9

Figure 1: Buffalo Dialplan Topology

649

Section II, Appendix B]. Exchange names set in bold face shown in figure 1 on
the preceding page follow the recommended exchange names.2 It is presumed that
these exchanges which were meant to service post-WWII growth were typically of
the No. 5 crossbar type. These will be documented somewhat in 4.

Changing the Dialplan

In order to allow Direct Distance Dialing as mentioned in 1 on page 1, it was

necessary to convert all telephone numbers to a seven digit number. For comparison, Rochester converted earlier and was able to use their existing exchange names
by adding a number immediately after, as allowed for in [5, Section II, 5.01].
This could have been done as manual exchanges were replaced by No. 5 crossbar throughout the 1950s. Buffalos conversion was complete in October, 1960,
and there would have been conflicts in assigning the necessary office codes to the
named exchanges, so it was decided that new virtual exchange names would be
used [citation needed]. Figure 1 on the previous page shows both the numbered
codes we use today as well as those virtual names.

Telephone Switch Types

The author has had an opportunity to terminate telephone calls on some of the
exchanges listed in figure 1 on the preceding page during the 1980s. In the best
order of recollection, Figure 2 on the next page is a partial list of switch types by
exchange code. It must be noted that the author learned how to recognize sounds
of No. 5 crossbar from being a youngster in nearby Rochester, whose exchanges
were all No. 5 crossbar with the exception of the more rural exchanges served by
Rochester Telephone.

References
[1] A. J. Alberts. A microwave systems combining network. Bell Laboratories
Record, 41:8792, March 1963.
[2] A. T. Corbin and A. S. May. Broadband horn reflector antenna. Bell Laboratories Record, 33:401404, November 1955.
2

Some of these names from older Buffalo city offices may be a coincidence, as the names correspond to older panel and No. 1 crossbar switch types. It is also possible these geographic exchange
names helped set the standard used by the Bell System, such as NIagara or AMherst.

839

198104

836

198603

838

198603

674

198608

892

198702

823

200606

Called to Snyder at this time and recognized the No. 5

crossbar ringback cadence.
Called a college classmate. Recognized No. 5 crossbar
ringback.
Called businesses in the vicinity of University at Buffalo.
Recognized No. 5 crossbar ringback.
Called a bulletin board system in West Seneca. Recognized No. 5 crossbar ringback.
Called a bulletin board system run at Erie County Medical
Center and noticed extra clicks before hearing the older
style metropolitan modulated ringback tone associated
with No. 1 crossbar. Presumably the last of the No. 1
crossbar switches operated in Buffalo.
A discussion with my significant other regarding remembering that her family changed a telephone number
from 824XXXX to 823XXXX in the early 70s to take
advantage of tone dialing. This would have made 823 a
No. 5 crossbar and 824 most likely a No. 1 crossbar and
less likely a panel system.

Figure 2: Exchanges With Known Switch Types

[3] Jordan McQuay. Networks for television. Radio News, pages 3941, 120, 122,
124, 126, November 1947.
[4] Department of Operation and Engineering. Notes On Nationwide Dialing.
American Telephone and Telegraph Company, 1955.
[5] Department of Operation and Engineering. Notes On Distance Dialing. American Telephone and Telegraph Company, September 1956.
[6] Pacific Telephone. Survey of Telephone Switching. Pacific Telephone, 1958.