PNEUMATIC MAIL TUBES
You put your money on the counter. The shop assistant makes out a bill;
and you wonder what he will do with it next. These large stores know
nothing of an open till. Yet there are no cashiers' desks visible; nor
any overhead wires to whisk a carrier off to some corner where a young
lady, enthroned in a box, controls all the pecuniary affairs of that
department.
While you are wondering the assistant has wrapped the coin in the bill
and put the two into a dumb-bell-shaped carrier, which he drops into a
hole. A few seconds later, flop! and the carrier has returned into a
basket under another opening. There is something so mysterious about
the operation that you ask questions, and it is explained to you that
there are pneumatic tubes running from every counter in the building
to a central pay-desk on the first or second floor; and that an engine
somewhere in the basement is hard at work all day compressing air to
shoot the carriers through their tubes.
Certainly a great improvement on those croquet-ball receptacles which
progressed with a deliberation maddening to anyone in a hurry along a
wooden suspended railway! Now, imagine tubes of this sort, only of much
larger diameter, in some cases, passing for miles under the streets
and houses, and you will have an idea of what the Pneumatic Mail
Despatch means: the cash and bill being replaced by letters, telegrams,
and possibly small parcels.
"Swift as the wind" is a phrase often in our mouths, when we wish to
emphasise the celerity of an individual, an animal, or a machine in
getting from one spot of the earth's surface to another. Mercury, the
messenger of uncertain-tempered Jove, was pictured with wings on his
feet to convey, symbolically, the same notion of speed. The modern
human messenger is so poor a counterpart of the god, and his feet are
so far from being winged, that for certain purposes we have fallen
back on elemental air-currents, not unrestrained like the breezes, but
confined to the narrow and certain paths of the metal tube.
The pneumatic despatch, which at the present day is by no means
universal, has been tried in various forms for several decades. Its
first public installation dates from 1853, when a tube three inches
in diameter and 220 yards long was laid in London to connect the
International Telegraph Company with the Stock Exchange. A vacuum
was created artificially in front of the carrier, which the ordinary
pressure of the atmosphere forced through the tube. Soon after this the
post-office authorities took the matter up, as the pneumatic system
promised to be useful for the transmission of letters; but refused to
face the initial expense of laying the tube lines.
When, in 1858, Mr. C. F. Varley introduced the high pressure method,
pneumatic despatch received an impetus comparable to that given to
the steam-engine by the employment of high-pressure steam. It was
now possible to use a double line of tubes economically, the air
compressed for sending the carriers through the one line being pumped
out of a chamber which sucked them back through the other. Tubes for
postal work were soon installed in many large towns in Great Britain,
Europe, and the United States; including the thirty-inch pneumatic
railway between the North-Western District post office in Eversholt
Street and Euston Station, which for some months of 1863 transported
the mails between these two points. The air was exhausted in front of
the carriage by a large fan. Encouraged by its success, the company
built a much larger tube, nearly 4-1/2 feet in diameter, to connect
Euston Station with the General Post Office. This carried fourteen
tons of post-office matter from one end to the other in a quarter
of an hour. There was an intermediate station in Holborn, where the
engines for exhausting had been installed. But owing to the difficulty
of preventing air leakage round the carriages the undertaking proved
a commercial failure, and for years the very route of this pneumatic
railway could not be found; so quickly are "failures" forgotten!
The more useful small tube grew most vigorously in America and France.
In, or about, the year 1875 the Western Union Telegraph Company laid
tubes in New York to despatch telegrams from one part of the city to
the other, because they found it quicker to send them this way than
over the wires. Eighteen years later fifteen miles of tubes were
installed in Chicago to connect the main offices of the same company
with the newspaper offices in the town, and with various important
public buildings. Messages which formerly took an hour or more in
delivery are now flipped from end to end in a few seconds.
The Philadelphia people meanwhile had been busy with a double line of
six-inch tubes, 3,000 feet long, laid by Mr. B. C. Batcheller between
the Bourse and the General Post Office, for the carriage of mails.
The first thing to pass through was a Bible wrapped in the "Stars
and Stripes." A 30 horse-power engine is kept busy exhausting and
compressing the air needed for the service, which amounts to about
800 cubic feet per minute. Philadelphia can also boast an eight-inch
service, connecting the General Post Office with the Union Railway
Station, a mile away. One and a half minutes suffice for the transit of
the large carriers packed tightly with letters and circulars, nearly
half a million of which are handled by these tubes daily.
New York is equally well served. Tubes run from the General Post Office
to the Produce Exchange, to Brooklyn, and to the Grand Central Station.
The last is 3-1/2 miles distant; but seven minutes only are needed
for a tube journey which formerly occupied the mail vans for nearly
three-quarters of an hour.
Paris is the city of the _petit bleu_, so important an institution in
the gay capital. Here a network of tubes connects every post office in
the urban area with a central bureau, acting the part of a telephone
exchange. If you want to send an express message to a friend anywhere
in Paris, you buy a _petit bleu_, _i.e._ a very thin letter-card not
exceeding 1/4 oz. in weight, at the nearest post office, and post it
in a special box. It whirls away to the exchange, and is delivered
from there if its destination be close at hand; otherwise it makes a
second journey to the office most conveniently situated for delivery.
Everybody uses the _voie pneumatique_ of Paris, so much cheaper than,
and quite as expeditious as, the telegraph; with the additional
advantage that all messages are transmitted in the sender's own
handwriting. The system has been instituted for a quarter of a century,
and the Parisians would feel lost without it.
London is by no means tubeless, for it has over forty miles of 1-1/2,
2-1/4, and 3-inch lines radiating from the postal nerve-centre of the
metropolis, of lengths ranging from 100 to 2,000 yards. The tubes are
in all cases composed of lead, enclosed in a protecting iron piping.
To make a joint great care must be exercised, so as to avoid any
irregularity of bore. When a length of piping is added to the line, a
chain is first passed through it, which has at the end a bright steel
mandrel just a shade larger than the pipe's internal diameter. This
is heated and pushed half-way into the pipe already laid; and the new
length is forced on to the other half till the ends touch. A plumber's
joint having been made, the mandrel is drawn by the chain through the
new length, obliterating any dents or malformations in the interior.
The main lines are doubled--an "up" and a "down" track; short branches
have one tube only to work the inward and the outward despatches.
The carriers are made of gutta-percha covered with felt. One end is
closed by felt discs fitting the tube accurately to prevent the passage
of air, the other is open for the introduction of messages. As they fly
through the tube, the carriers work an automatic signalling apparatus,
which tells how far they have progressed and when it will be safe to
despatch the next carrier.
The London post-office system is worked by six large engines situated
in the basement of the General Post Office.
So useful has the pneumatic tube proved that a Bill has been before
Parliament for supplying London with a 12-inch network of tubes,
totalling 100 miles of double line. In a letter published in _The
Times_, April 19, 1905, the promoters of the scheme give a succinct
account of their intentions, and of the benefits which they expect
to accrue from the scheme if brought to completion. The Batcheller
system, they write, with which it is proposed to equip London, is not
a development of the miniature systems used for telegrams or single
letters here or in Paris, Berlin, and other cities. Such systems deal
with a felt carrier weighing a few ounces, which is stopped by being
blown into a box. The Batcheller system deals with a loaded steel
carrier weighing seventy pounds travelling with a very high momentum.
The difference is fundamental. In this sense pneumatic tubes are a
recent invention, and absolutely new to Europe.
The Batcheller system is the response to a pressing need. Careful
observations show that more than 30 per cent. of the street traffic
is occupied with parcels and mails. These form a distinct class,
differentiated from passengers on the one hand and from heavy goods on
the other. The Batcheller system will do for parcels and mails what the
underground electric railways do for passengers. It has been in use for
twelve years in America for mail purposes, and where used has come to
be regarded as indispensable.
The plan for London provides for nearly one hundred miles of double
tubes with about twice that number of stations for receiving and
delivery. The system will cover practically the County of London,
and no point within that area can be more than one-quarter of a mile
from a tube station. Beyond the County of London deliveries will be
made by a carefully organised suburban motor-cart service. Thirty of
the receiving stations are to be established in the large stores. The
diameter of the tube is to be of a size that will accommodate 80 per
cent. of the parcels, as now wrapped, and 90 per cent. with slight
adaptation. The remaining 10 per cent.--furniture, pianos, and other
heavy goods--are to be dealt with by a supplementary motor service.
If the tubes were enlarged their object would be partially defeated,
for with the increased size would go increased cost, great surplus
of capacity, less frequent despatch, and lower efficiency generally.
The unsuccessful Euston Tunnel of forty years ago--practically an
underground railway--is an extreme illustration of this point, though
in that case there were grave mechanical defects as well.
From a mechanical point of view the system has been brought to such
perfection that it is no more experimental than a locomotive or an
electric tramcar. The unique value of tube service is due to immediate
despatch, high velocity of transit, immunity from traffic interruption,
and economy. The greatest obstacle to rapid intercommunication is the
delay resulting from accumulations due to time schedules. The function
of tube service is to abolish time schedules and all consequent delays.
The number of trades parcels annually delivered in London is estimated
at _more than 200,000,000_. A careful canvass has been made of 1,000
shops only, which represent a very small fraction of the total number
in the county. As a result it has been ascertained that these 1,000
shops deliver no fewer than 60,000,000 parcels yearly, a fact that
seems to more than justify the foregoing estimate; on the other hand,
it is known from official data that the parcel post in London is
represented by less than 25,000,000, or one-ninth of the total parcel
traffic. With a tube system in operation, every parcel, instead of
waiting for "the next delivery," would leave the shop immediately.
After being despatched by the tube it would be delivered at a tube
station within a quarter of a mile at least of its destination, and
thence by messenger. The entire time consumed for an ordinary parcel
would be not over an hour, and for a special parcel fifteen to twenty
minutes. They require from three to six hours or longer at present.
The advantages of the tube system to the public would be manifold.
Customers would find their purchases at home upon their return, or,
if they preferred, could do their shopping by telephone, making their
selections from goods sent on approval by tube. The shopman would find
himself relieved from a vast amount of confusion and annoyance, less
of his shop space given up to delivery, and his expenses reduced.
Small shops would be able to draw upon wholesale houses for goods not
in stock, while the customer waited. Such delay and confusion as are
frequently occasioned by fogs would be reduced to a minimum.
While the success of the project is not dependent on Post Office
support, the Post Office should be one of the greatest gainers by it.
The time of delivery of local letters would be reduced from an average
of three hours and six minutes to one hour. Express letters would be
delivered more quickly than telegrams. This has been demonstrated
conclusively again and again in New York and other American cities
where the tubes have been in operation for years. The latest time of
posting country letters would be deferred from one-half to one hour,
and incoming letters would be advanced by a similar period. The parcels
post would gain in precisely the same way, but to an even larger extent.
If the Post Office choose to avail themselves of the opportunity,
every post office will become a tube station and every tube station
a post office. Thus the same number of postmen covering but a tithe
of the present distances could make deliveries without time schedules
at intervals of a few minutes with a handful instead of a bagful of
letters.
The sorting of mails would be performed at every station instead of
at a few. Incoming country mails would be taken from the bags at the
railway termini, and the same bags refilled with outgoing country
mails, thus avoiding needless carriage to the Post Office and back.
No bags at all would be used for local mails, the steel carriers
themselves answering that purpose.
At every tube terminal a post-office clerk would be stationed, so that
the mails would never for an instant be out of post-office control. Its
absolute security would be further ensured by a system of locking, so
that the carriers could only be opened by authorised persons at the
station to which they were directed. These safeguards offer a striking
contrast to the present method that entrusts mail bags to the sole
custody of van drivers in the employ of private contractors.
If the mails were handled by tube, business men would be able to
communicate with each other and receive replies several times in one
day, and country and foreign letters could always be answered upon the
day of receipt. The effect would be felt all over the Empire.
Would the laying of the tubes seriously impede traffic? The promoters
assure us that the inconvenience would not be comparable to that
caused by laying a gas, water, or telephone system. When one of those
has been laid the annoyance, they urge, has only begun. The streets
must be periodically reopened for the purpose of making thousands of
house connections, extensions, and repairs. When a pneumatic tube is
once down it is good for a generation at least. It is not subject to
recurrent alterations incidental to house connections and repairs. In
three American cities the tubes have been touched but three times in
twelve years, and in those cases the causes were a bursting water main
and faulty adjacent electric installations. The repairs were effected
in a few hours.
From a general consideration of the scheme we may now turn to some
mechanical details. The pipes would be of 1 foot internal diameter,
made in 12-foot lengths. "Straight sections," writes an engineering
correspondent of _The Times_, "would be of cast-iron, bored,
counter-bored, and turned to a slight taper at one end, to fit a
recess at the other end (of the next tube), to form the joints, which
could be caulked. Joints made in this way are estimated to permit of
a deflection of 2 inches from the straight, so that the laying and
bedding need not be exact. Bent sections are to be of seamless brass;
these are bored true before bending. The permissible curvature is
determined upon the basis of a _maximum_ bend of 1 foot radius for
every 1 inch of diameter; the 1 foot diameter of the London tubes
would consequently be allowed a _maximum_ curvature of 12 foot radius.
Measured at the enlarged end, the over-all diameter of each pipe is
17 inches, and as two such pipes are to be laid side by side, with
18 inches between centres, the clear width will be 35 inches. The
trenches are therefore to be cut 36 inches wide, and in order to have
a comparatively free run for the sections, it is proposed to cut the
trenches 6 feet deep."
When the hundred miles of piping have been laid, the entire system
will be tested to a pressure of 25 lbs. to the square inch, or about
two and a half times the working pressure. Engines of 10,000 h.p. will
be required to feed the lines with air, for the propulsion of the
carriers, each 3 feet 10 inches long, and weighing 70 lbs.
In order to ensure the delivery of a carrier at its proper destination,
whether a terminus or an intermediate station, Mr. Batcheller has
made a most ingenious provision. On the front of a carrier is fixed a
metal plate of a certain diameter. At each station two electric wires
project into the tube, and as soon as a plate of sufficient diameter
to short-circuit these wires arrives, the current operates delivery
mechanism, and the carrier is switched off into the station box. The
despatcher, knowing the exact size of disc for each station, can
therefore make certain that the carrier shall not go astray.
It may occur to the reader that, should a carrier accidentally stick
anywhere in the tubes, it would be a matter of great difficulty to
locate it. Evidently one could not feel for it with a long rod in half
a mile of tubing--the distance between every two stations--with much
hope of finding it. But science has evolved a simple, and at the same
time quite reliable, method of coping with the problem. M. Bontemps
is the inventor. He located troubles in the Paris tubes by firing
a pistol, and exactly measuring the time which elapsed between the
report and its echo. As the rate of sound travel is definitely known,
instruments of great delicacy enable the necessary calculations to be
made with great accuracy. When a breakdown occurred on the Philadelphia
tube line, Mr. Batcheller employed this method with great success, for
a street excavation, made on the strength of rough measurements with
the timing apparatus, came within a few feet of the actual break in the
pipe, caused by a subsidence, while the carriers themselves were found
almost exactly at the point where the workmen had been told to begin
digging.[23]
There is no doubt that, were such a system as that proposed
established, an enormous amount of time would be saved to the
community. "A letter from Charing Cross to Liverpool Street," says _The
World's Work_, "occupies by post three hours; by tube transit it would
occupy twenty to forty minutes, or by an express system of tube transit
ten to fifteen minutes. Express messages carried by the Post Office in
London last year (1903) numbered about a million and a half, but the
cost sometimes seems very heavy. To send a special message by hand
from Hampstead to Fleet Street, for example, costs 1s. 3d., and takes
about an hour. It is claimed that it could be sent by pneumatic tube
at a cost of 3d. in from fifteen to twenty minutes, and that for local
service the tube would be far quicker than the telegraph, and many
times cheaper."
It has been calculated that from one-sixth to one-quarter of the
wheeled traffic of London is occupied with the distribution of mails
and parcels; and if the tubes relieved the streets to this extent,
this fact alone would be a strong argument in their favour. It is
impossible to believe that tube transmission on a gigantic scale will
not come. Hitherto its development has been hindered by mechanical
difficulties. But these have been mostly removed. In the United States,
where the adage "time is money" is lived up to in a manner scarcely
known on this side of the Atlantic, the device has been welcomed for
public libraries, warehouses, railway depôts, factories--in short,
for all purposes where the employment of human messengers means
delay and uncertainty. Twenty years ago Berlier proposed to connect
London and Paris by tubes of a diameter equal to that of the pipes
contemplated in the scheme now before Parliament. Our descendants may
see the tubes laid; for when once a system of transportation has been
proved efficient on a large scale its development soon assumes huge
proportions. And even the present generation may witness the tubes of
our big cities lengthen their octopus arms till town and town are in
direct communication. After all it is merely a question of "Will it
pay?" We have the _means_ of uniting Edinburgh and London by tube
as effectually as by telephone or telegraph. And since the general
trend of modern commerce is to bring the article to the customer
rather than to give the customer the trouble of going to select the
article _in situ_--this applies, of course, to small portable things
only--"shopping from a distance" will come into greater favour, and the
pneumatic tube will be recognised as a valuable ally. We can imagine
that Mrs. Robinson of, say, Reading, will be glad to be spared the
fatigue of a journey to Regent Street when a short conversation over
the telephone wires is sufficient to bring to her door, within an hour,
a selection of silver ware from which to choose a wedding present. And
her husband, whose car has perhaps broken a rod at Newbury, will be
equally glad of the quick delivery of a duplicate part from the makers.
These are only two possible instances, which do not claim to be typical
or particularly striking. If you sit down and consider what an immense
amount of time and expense could be saved to you in the course of a
year by a "lightning despatch," you will soon come to the conclusion
that the pneumatic tube has a great future before it.
FOOTNOTE:
[23] _Cassier's Magazine_, xiii, 456.