In article _x3tk.43458$hx.13021@pd7urf3no,
Tony Hwang wrote:

In this day and age who is using party lines?

Very few, I'm sure.

I suspect that most remaining multi-party lines in service belong to
independent telcos and, even then, the stations are probably far away
from the Central Office (farm lines, etc).

if so every party line users phone has different selective ring tone?

Not during the remaining years of my career. In fact, in "my" exchange
(local call but just outside Omaha, Nebraska), there were only a handful
of 2FRs and they were eliminated a few years before I retired.

The distinctive ringing I described was used mostly (exclusively?) in
manual (non-dial) exchanges. It was the Operator, manually pushing the
ringback key on her switchboard, that made the patterned ring.

Keep in mind this is some VERY old history. I am not sure that any
automatic (but non-ESS) Central Office was capable of custom ringing.
By then, however, most partyline arrangements had been reduced to TWO
parties - and even they were "bridged" in the Central Office for
convenience.

So how many different phones do we need then?

Just one: The Western Electric 500 (for example) ringer could be wired
for Tip service or Ring service.

In a properly wired situation, given two-party service, neither party
would hear ringing if the call was for their partymate. Not so with
4FR, 6FR and 8FR. It was the distinctive ring pattern on one side of
the pair that informed the parties as for whom the call was intended.

My working days I never heard such thing. This
phone is for Joesa', this phone is Smiths, so on and on?

That is correct.

In later days, as cable infrastructure caught up with and even exceeded
the demand, 4FR, 6FR and 8FR services were regraded to two-party service
and were bridged in the Central Office.

Diehard, remaining two-party subscribers were asked occasionally to
regrade to private service. Some did, others hung on to the cheaper
service. Here's where the devious "fun" began...

As two-party service faded, there were many 2FR-class subscribers
bridged ALONE - they had NO partymate. Their partymate had either
regraded to private service or had simply disconnected their service.

Those that hung on to their 2FR service did so, in part, because they
"saw" (heard) NO reason to switch: They hadn't had to share their line
with anyone in YEARS.

After canvassing the remaining 2FR subscribers in an exchange, the telco
would REASSIGN a partymate to the remaining, formerly bridged alone
subscribers.

Having to share a line again, most of these diehard 2FR subscribers
would finally regrade to a private line. "Measured Service" would
provide them with the same, lower price as their former partyline
service but on a private line.
--

JR