Workplace & School

Pneumatic tubes
provided inter-office delivery of paperwork and small objects
Pneumatic tubes

There are 4 comments for this item.

Posted by Max at 5:19 pm (PST) on Sun November 1, 2009   
There was a Merrill Lynch office in Los Angeles that was using pneumatic tubes between floors as recently as the early 1980's. They seem to have gained a new life at remote teller stations in drive-thru banking.

In Europe, some post offices operated miles of tubes. IIRC, some of these countries were behind what used to be called the Iron Curtain.
Posted by syndicate1949 at 5:21 am (PDT) on Thu April 8, 2010   
I believe Costco still uses these but for various uses!
Posted by Bob Wilson Jr at 6:42 am (PDT) on Wed April 21, 2010   
The J. C. Penney stores used these systems extensively back in the 1940's, as did Sakes 5th Avenue in Manhattan as late as the '60s. Banks still use this principle at drive-in windows.
Posted by Duff at 10:06 pm (PST) on Sat December 18, 2010   
I recently heard that someone has proposed burying tubes like this (or larger) under city streets, leading to every home and business, and using Internet packet switching protocols to deliver everything from the mail to groceries, thereby drastically reducing peoples' need to get in the car and commute/pollute. (Collute? Can I coin a term here?).

Hmmm, why stop with the mail and groceries? I'll bet the kids would love to go to school by tube, too... Yiiiii!!!

Registered users can log in to post comments or submit items for the galleries.
Login Register


Bookmark and Share

Most people find us by word of mouse. Please share our URL,
http://www.bbemuseum.com/museum/ with your friends!
This site is brought to you using 100% recycled electrons.

Total trivia questions served: 1,114,619