Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The pneumatic tube mail system in New York City

untappedcities.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 115 posts

Re: The pneumatic tube mail system in New York City

#61

Post by alwa »

pests wrote: post #46
corytheboyd wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Glad to hear the dream of the nineties is alive in the midwest:D

Oh its here. Metro Detroit. It gets cold. The thought of banks not having pneumatic tubes is so strange to me I'm chuckling here. Seeing you reminisce about something that I see almost daily is a weird culture shock in that people in our same country experience life is somehow completely opposite ways. It's like if someome told me there a secret Blockbuster still serving some quiet neighborhood in the country and for…

In fact there is, and it is:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blockbuster_(Bend,_Oregon)

Re: The pneumatic tube mail system in New York City

#62

Post by lobsterthief »

jbuzbee wrote: post #33
corytheboyd wrote: post #9

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.

Those bank-teller tubes are still in use in the Denver suburbs.

And all over Florida.

Re: The pneumatic tube mail system in New York City

#63

Post by gwern »

obelix150 wrote: post #43
FartyMcFarter wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seriously. One would have to be a bit of a psycho to put an animal through that without an extremely good reason.

Depending on the distance I would expect the cat to have succumbed during the trip. If the inside of the canister was not open to the outside air it probably wouldn't have enough oxygen and have suffocated during the trip. If it was open, would the amount of pressure in the tubes be fatal to a cat? If the cat did survive, I wouldn't want to be the attendant who opened the canister.

The longest trip quoted is 4 minutes. I don't think a cat is going to suffocate in a small tube in 4 minutes, even a very unhappy one.

Re: The pneumatic tube mail system in New York City

#65

Post by IIAOPSW »

huytersd wrote: post #14
smeej wrote: post #11

> 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?

Public private partnership. The city doesn't have the funds up front, so it contracts the work out but part of the payment is a monopoly on running the service for some number of years. This is how the subway was built using the dual contracts (IRT and BMT). Basically the city paid contractors to build the subway, and paid for it in part by letting them run the subway and collect fares.

Re: The pneumatic tube mail system in New York City

#66

Post by MikeTheGreat »

boneitis wrote: post #56
pests wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh its here. Metro Detroit. It gets cold. The thought of banks not having pneumatic tubes is so strange to me I'm chuckling here. Seeing you reminisce about something that I see almost daily is a weird culture shock in that people in our same country experience life is somehow completely opposite ways. It's like if someome told me there a secret Blockbuster still serving some quiet neighborhood in the country and for…

> Seeing you reminisce about something that I see almost daily is a weird culture shock How about: i legitimately thought that the pneumatic tube system i saw in Futurama where Hermes saves the day was a made up thing (or otherwise not commercially used or deployed outside of some sort of lab setting) until i came across this submission? I feel so silly right now.

Someone else posted this recently and features both XKCD and supportive, positive thoughts. Enjoy!

https://xkcd.com/1053/

Re: The pneumatic tube mail system in New York City

#67

Post by bagels »

dools wrote: post #34
erohead wrote: post #6

Similar to the Alameda burrito tunnel that sends fresh Mission burritos to NYC: https://idlewords.com/2007/04/the_alameda_weehawken_burrito_...

No-one has thought to just open a burrito joint in NYC?

The food would be fresher, I hope.

Re: The pneumatic tube mail system in New York City

#68

Post by rombuu »

jbuzbee wrote: post #33
corytheboyd wrote: post #9

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.

Those bank-teller tubes are still in use in the Denver suburbs.

We still have them in the KC metro area, Fwiw.

Re: The pneumatic tube mail system in New York City

#69

Post by fragmede »

elahd wrote: post #48
woleium wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More to the point, who owns them now and can we pull fibre through them?

Verizon, actually. Not the mail tubes specifically, but they own Empire City Subway, a 130 year old company rents out sub-street conduit for telecom. Their tubes are visible when streets are dug up for construction. https://www.empirecitysubway.com/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empire_City_Subway Looks like their lowest rate (<=2.5" conduit) is $3,660/mile/yr, not including installation, permitting, and city franchi…

To be able to charge business customers $500-$1500+/month for 10-gig and run an IPX? Sounds cheap!
Post reply on HN