Pneumatic post

[faceless]

I remember as a kid seeing orders being sent through pipes at a department store in the 70s, but I had no idea it had ever been a large scale thing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prague_pneumatic_post

The reason I got to that page is that I was thinking to myself about making a miniature tunnel boring machine (as you do!) and that's where I ended up.

[pirtybirdy]

They still do something like that here on a small scale. At the bank you have it for the drive thru teller, and I also did it when I had my bank up in NY. The tellers were in a back room and I saw them on a computer screen and a telephone and had to put my documents in the tube and it got sucked to the back room where they did what they did back there, and sent me back my receipts. I'd like to see more of that in Prague. That is something else on a grand scale. Don't ya think that would make a fine documentary? I'd love to see that.

[faceless]

I think it would be a great doc to show how things have changed - if someone's not made it yet, someone should! The fact it was used as recently as 2002 says a lot, even if it was subsidised.

[eefanincan]

There were a couple of stores when I was a kid, who used to do their ordering that way---- you filled out a ticket then it was sent to their backroom where they picked the order then sent it out front.

Still used in one of our hospitals here for a few things like sending forms to a certain location.

[pirtybirdy]

These were interesting pictures of the underground UK railway the post office used to use.

[faceless]

nice one pirty, that's pretty cool