[grishka]

Then you might be interested to watch this guy who bought an electromechanical telephone exchange. And then expanded it more and more as he obtained and restored more parts. There are many more videos on this subject on both this channels.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BvhqZbtU_Zs

[aftbit]

Also check out the Connections Museum, either on YouTube[1] or in person in Seattle if you can! Lots of cool old lost-art telephone hardware and a few volunteers trying to keep it running. Another interesting option is C*NET[2], a VoIP telephone network for connecting collector-owned obsolete telephone hardware together.

1: https://www.youtube.com/c/ConnectionsMuseum

2: https://ckts.info/