Pneumatic tubes were once a vital part of communications networks in London, New York and Paris, says Tom Standage
In 2006 Ted Stevens, a senator from Alaska, inadvertently coined a phrase when he cluelessly described the internet as “a series of tubes”. The internet is made up of many things – wires, optical fibres, servers, switches and routers – but tubes are not among them. Yet there was a time when communications networks really did rely on tubes. Messages written on paper whizzed along underground pipes, propelled by compressed air from steam engines. This steampunk internet has been largely forgotten but its origins shed light on the ways that rapid digital communication can create problems as well as solutions.The first pneumatic-tube system was set up in London in 1854 to carry telegrams between the Central Telegraph Office (CTO) and the stock exchange, just 220 yards away. At the time around half of all telegrams received at the CTO related to stock trades. As the volume of incoming traffic increased, the connection to the stock exchange became overloaded, and time-sensitive telegrams started to pile up. It became apparent that it would be quicker to transport the messages in physical form rather than retransmit them electrically over such a short distance. Josiah Latimer Clark, an engineer at the Electric Telegraph Company, devised a novel way to do it.
An underground tube, an inch and a half in diameter, was laid along the route. Five messages at a time could be packed into a leather-coated cylinder with a felt bumper at the front. The carrier was then fired along the tube at 20 feet per second using compressed air from a six-horse-power steam engine. This increased the capacity of the network link tenfold, allowing ten messages to be sent each minute. In 1858 the system was upgraded with larger tubes that had a greater capacity and then expanded across London. While the network largely carried stock trades and business documents, it was also used for personal correspondence for people who could afford the expense. In the 1860s similar networks were built in Liverpool, Birmingham and Manchester. The idea quickly spread abroad: pneumatic-tube networks were soon operating in Paris, Berlin, Vienna, Prague, Rome, Naples and Milan.
One of the most elaborate versions was built in New York, linking several post offices in Manhattan and Brooklyn. With tubes eight inches in diameter, it could handle small parcels. At its inauguration in 1897, a tortoise-shell cat was sent from the south end of Broadway to Park Row, nearly a mile uptown. The cat was dazed, but otherwise unharmed. Paris developed the most extensive network...MORE
