Bell System Emergency Pull Station

[WEBellSystemChristian]

While I was helping clean out the garage today before winter (not my favorite thing to do on a cold, cloudy Wisconsin Saturday  ), I found a bright red metal box sitting on a shelf. I wouldn't have been interested in it, if I hadn't noticed the Western Electric inspection stamping on it. I flipped it over, to happily find out that Bell System was engraved on it!

It appears to be a fire alarm pull station, but it doesn't say 'fire' anywhere on it, just 'emergency'. Do you guys think this could have been in a Western Electric factory?

[Dave F]

I don't know where it might have been used, but that is one very cool item to find sitting in the garage!

DF

[WEBellSystemChristian]

I don't know where it might have been used, but that is one very cool item to find sitting in the garage!

DF

My dad knew the guy who was in charge of disposing all of Wisconsin Telephone's equipment. This includes all of the phones, phone trucks, central office equipment, and anything else that was disposed of by Wisconsin Telephone! My dad was given several things by this guy that were going to be thrown out, like a 1960s phone booth that he still has!

I bet this pull station came from that guy!

[Dave F]

I've never seen this particular design, which makes me think it's pretty rare.  Nice find!

DF

[WesternElectricBen]

Now, that's a real find, being you found it in your garage!

Ben

[Doug Rose]

Christian...that's a really nice find. I have the "door" displayed in my phone room, but not the whole unit. If you don't want it, someone on the Forum will    ....Doug

[Jim Stettler]

That is a Bell System Emergency pull. I used to have 3 of them. I think I sold them for around $35.00 each.

I was told that they were mounted by the manf. line  for emergency line shutdown ( 1 horn posted above the pull) and at  fire exits as fire pull stations. On a general fire alarm all production  lines were shut down.

Based on the design and key I believe they were manf. by a fire alarm company for Bell. I can't recall the brand (Faraday?) I used to have an example that took the same key.

I think the pull stations used  home run cabling to an annunciator at a guard station  which would identify which  pull was activated.  Fire alarms of the same era had multiple pull stations on each zone, with descriptions like east wing or 3rd floor ect.
Jim S.

Fair radio   has some 48vdc Bell system horns made by faraday @ $8.00 ea .
  https://www.fairradio.com/catalog.php?mode=search&keywords=horn&submit.x=0&submit.y=0

Pull stations short on alarm meaning the alarm is activated when the wiring shorts.

Projects include  rigging 48v in series with the pull station and horn and the horn would blow whenever the station is open.
you could also get a less impressive effect using the pull station with a battery and buzzer. 

my favorite would be to hook it as a switch between  a ringing supply and CO line on the 616. when activated the ring signal would trip as an incoming call and set all your phones ringing, Great for when you hear "I wonder what it sounds like when they all ring"
Just some thoughts.