DJK,
Yes, the rapid routing tone is also a feature of the French network, but we've never had it in Britain. These days, of course, with everything digital calls to regular landlines anywhere in the country start ringing almost as soon as you take your finger off the last digit, but back in the Strowger days all you'd get between dialing and ringing starting was the background sounds of switches stepping and trunk noise. Calls to cellular phones these days generally just give a few seconds silence while the system contacts the phone to start the ringing.
Lines with voicemail here use an interrupted dial-tone as the message-waiting indicator, the timing making it sound very similar to an American busy signal. Some modems have problems with that, and report no dial tone.
The CO equipment here has similar problems with the the flash/recall timing. On some imported phones it's impossible to use the recall feature, and you have to just flash the hook-switch instead. The default flash setting on many modems is also too long for the British system.
Sven,
I'm afraid I don't have any of the spares you're looking for that I could offer you at the moment, but 700-series phones are pretty easy to come by here. Have you tried searching the telephone category on eBay (use the "located in U.K." option). There are almost always loads of 746 phones on there, and if you can find one with a dirty or damaged case you could pick it up very cheaply and use it for spares.
