There were two types lines.

First the ancient one where a line was run from a telephone switchboard (usually manned by women) out into the sticks. Everyone on that line could talk to each other (several at once until there were too many and the sound got very weak). Those had different rings. Ours was 2 long, 6 short. That was in the days of the handcrank phone. To talk to people not on that line you had to go through the operator who would manually plug your line into the line of the person you wanted.

Next was the "modern" dial phone. It was a party line but you should have only heard your ring. Only one call could be going at a time. I was on one of those for awhile but someone screwed up and connected me to a private line (at party line rates).

Harry K
Harry K