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Watching my parents go through the drive in bank teller using pneumatic tubes to send items back and forth is such a fun cool memory I have from my childhood. In a funny way, it still feels way more “sci-fi future tech” than pressing a touch screen and wait 4 seconds for a change to happen… or not.
In the midwest it's still the reality, because in the winter it gets darn cold.
There was also a pneumatic shuttle subway in Manhattan that served as POC for a subway system.
That poor cat
> The system, which was located 4 to 6 feet below the city streets, was created and owned by private companies, to which the city paid rent and labor. When did we collectively lose the idea that such a model is even possible?
I don’t understand it. What did the city rent? What was the profit sharing like? Did the private companies keep all the profits and the city footed the bill for maintenance, support and upkeep?
>> “The high operating costs of the pneumatic system ultimately proved its downfall. By 1918, the federal government considered the annual rental payments ($17,000 per mile per annum) made by the post office to be ‘exorbitant’ and endorsed a new alternative with greater capacity–the automobile–as the delivery method of choice.”
Similar to the Alameda burrito tunnel that sends fresh Mission burritos to NYC: https://idlewords.com/2007/04/the_alameda_weehawken_burrito_...
You'd think they would have figured out a way to send pizza back the other way, given California's deficit.
SOME of the time. It clearly wouldn't replace email.
All the tubes would be out in the open, so clearing a blockage would be no problem.
Similar to the Alameda burrito tunnel that sends fresh Mission burritos to NYC: https://idlewords.com/2007/04/the_alameda_weehawken_burrito_...
You'd think they would have figured out a way to send pizza back the other way, given California's deficit.
> The system, which was located 4 to 6 feet below the city streets, was created and owned by private companies, to which the city paid rent and labor. When did we collectively lose the idea that such a model is even possible?
More to the point, who owns them now and can we pull fibre through them?
Similar to the Alameda burrito tunnel that sends fresh Mission burritos to NYC: https://idlewords.com/2007/04/the_alameda_weehawken_burrito_...
https://www.pbs.org/video/the-transcontinental-burrito-hyper...