Pneumatic tube

Short description: Compressed air or vacuum transport system

A pneumatic tube system in Washington, D.C., in 1943

Pneumatic tubes (or capsule pipelines, also known as pneumatic tube transport or PTT or PTS or pneumatic tube systems ) are systems that propel cylindrical containers/carriers through networks of tubes by compressed air or by partial vacuum. They are used for transporting solid objects, as opposed to conventional pipelines which transport fluids. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries pneumatic tube networks were most often found in offices that needed to transport small, urgent packages such as mail, other paperwork, or money over relatively short distances; with most systems confined to a single building or at most an area within a city. The largest installations became quite complex in their time, but have mostly been superseded by digitisation in the information age. Some systems have been further developed in the 21st century in places such as hospitals, to send blood samples and similar time-sensitive packages to clinical laboratories for analysis.[1]

A small number of pneumatic transportation systems were built for larger cargo, to compete with train and subway systems. However these systems never gained popularity.[example needed]

## Contents

* 1 History
* 1.1 Historical use
* 1.2 Pneumatic tube systems in hospitals
* 1.2.1 History and adoption
* 1.2.2 Applications
* 1.2.2.1 Laboratory specimen transport
* 1.2.2.2 Pharmacy logistics and Unit Dose
* 1.2.2.3 Automated handover to laboratories and pharmacies
* 1.3 Further uses and logistics integration
* 2 Applications
* 2.1 In postal service
* 2.2 In public transportation
* 2.3 Pneumatic elevator
* 2.4 In money transfer
* 2.5 In medicine
* 2.6 Department stores
* 2.7 Waste disposal
* 2.8 In production
* 3 Technical characteristics
* 4 See also
* 5 References
* 6 Further reading
* 7 External links

## History

### Historical use

Pneumatic tubes at a drive-through bank

Pneumatic transportation was invented by William Murdoch around 1799.[2] Capsule pipelines were first used in the Victorian era, to transmit telegrams from telegraph stations to nearby buildings. The system is known as pneumatic dispatch.[3]

In 1854, Josiah Latimer Clark was issued a patent "for conveying letters or parcels between places by the pressure of air and vacuum". In 1853, he installed a 220-yard (200 m) pneumatic system between the London Stock Exchange in Threadneedle Street, London, and the offices of the Electric Telegraph Company in Lothbury.[3] The Electric Telegraph Company used the system to acquire stock prices and other financial information to pass to subscribers of their service over their telegraph wires. This enabled much more rapid dissemination of information, as without the pneumatic system the company would have had to employ runners to carry messages between the two buildings, or else employ trained telegraph operators within the Stock Exchange. In the mid-1860s the company installed similar systems to local stock exchanges in Liverpool, Birmingham, and Manchester.[4] After the telegraphs were nationalised in Britain the pneumatic system continued to be expanded under Post Office Telegraphs. That expansion was primarily driven by Joseph William Willmot (previously employed at the Electric & International Telegraph Company) improving Latimer-Clark's invention in 1870 with the "double sluice pneumatic valve", and in 1880 with the "intermediate signaller/quick break switch for pneumatic tubes", which dramatically sped up operations and made it possible for a number of carrier messages to be in the tube at any one time.[5] By 1880 there were over 21 miles (34 km) of tube in London.[6] A tube was laid between the Aberdeen fish market office and the main post office to facilitate the rapid sale of the very perishable commodity.[7]

While they are commonly used for small parcels and documents, including cash carriers at banks or supermarkets,[8] in the early 19th century they were proposed for transport of heavy freight. It was once envisaged that networks of massive tubes might be used to transport people.[9]

### Pneumatic tube systems in hospitals

Hospitals deploy PTS as part of broader automation strategies to handle rising patient volumes and throughput pressures in many settings, particularly those with aging populations and high admission rates. International indicators show heterogeneous trends—discharges fell in many OECD countries between 2011 and 2019, but rose substantially in others (e.g., Korea and Japan), and increased in large partner countries such as China—illustrating why capacity solutions like PTS are adopted to alleviate internal logistics bottlenecks.

#### History and adoption

Hospitals have deployed PTS for decades, with contemporary systems shifting from single-zone layouts to multi-zone architectures that connect high-traffic clinical areas. Vendors emphasize interdepartmental connectivity (e.g., pharmacy–lab–ward links) and auditability as part of hospital logistics.

#### Applications

##### Laboratory specimen transport

PTS are widely used for routine and urgent specimen transport from wards and emergency departments to central laboratories. Studies show that, when validated, PTS can achieve fast transit times without degrading analytical quality; however, laboratories typically perform local validation because effects can vary by analyte and system design

##### Pharmacy logistics and Unit Dose

Hospital pharmacies use PTS to expedite medication distribution to wards and automated dispensing points. Integration with Unit Dose packaging and dispensing solutions enables patient-specific, traceable medication flows and supports closed-loop medication management. Industry systems (e.g., TheraPick; Baxter’s unit-dose platforms) and hospital PTS vendors describe end-to-end traceability and secure handover at sending/receiving stations.

##### Automated handover to laboratories and pharmacies

Some PTS installations provide automated interfaces to pre-analytical laboratory lines, allowing carriers to be received, identified, and unloaded robotically so that standard tests enter fully automated tracks with minimal manual handling. Pharmacies likewise integrate stations that enforce controlled access and electronic logging at dispatch and receipt.

### Further uses and logistics integration

In the United States, drive-up banks often used pneumatic tubes to transport cash and documents between cars and tellers; by the 2020s some of these have been removed, obviated by the rise of mobile banking apps and the increasing sophistication of ATMs. Many hospitals have a computer-controlled pneumatic tube system to deliver drugs, documents, and specimens to and from laboratories and nurses' stations.[1] Many factories use them to deliver parts quickly across large campuses. Many larger stores use systems to securely transport excess cash from checkout stands to back offices, and to send change back to cashiers.[10] They are used in casinos to move money, chips, and cards quickly and securely. Japanese love hotels use them to allow customers to settle bills anonymously.[11] NASA's original Mission Control Center had pneumatic tubes connecting controller consoles with staff support rooms. Mission Operations Control Room 2 was last used in its original configuration in 1992 and then remodeled for other missions. Because the room was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1985, it was decided in 2017 to restore it to its 1960s condition.[12] The pneumatic tubes were removed and sent to the Cosmosphere in Kansas for restoration.[13]

NASA Mission Control Center during the Apollo 13 mission. Note pneumatic tube canisters in console to the right.

Pneumatic tube systems have been used in nuclear chemistry to transport samples during neutron activation analysis. Samples must be moved from the nuclear reactor core, in which they are bombarded with neutrons, to the instrument that measures the resulting radiation. As some of the radioactive isotopes in the sample can have very short half-lives, speed is important. These systems may be automated, with a magazine of sample tubes that are moved into the reactor core in turn for a predetermined time, before being moved to the instrument station and finally to a container for storage and disposal.[14]

Until it closed in early 2011, a McDonald's in Edina, Minnesota claimed to be the "World's Only Pneumatic Air Drive-Thru," sending food from their strip-mall location to a drive-through in the middle of a parking lot.[15]

Technology editor Quentin Hardy noted renewed interest as of 2015[update] in transmission of data by pneumatic tube accompanied discussions of digital network security,[16] and he cited research into London's forgotten pneumatic network.[17]

Translogic is one of the largest modern healthcare pneumatic tube providers. KUKA is a German manufacturer of industrial robots and factory automation systems. In 2016, the company was acquired by the Chinese appliance manufacturer Midea Group. KUKA acquired Swisslog in 2014 and Translogic in 1999.[citation needed]

Related applications include fish cannons[18] which use mechanisms very similar to pneumatic tube systems.

## Applications

### In postal service

Pneumatic tube letter from Berlin, Germany, 1904

Pneumatic post or pneumatic mail is a system to deliver letters through pressurized air tubes. It was invented by the Scottish engineer William Murdoch in the 19th century and was later developed by the London Pneumatic Despatch Company. Pneumatic post systems were used in several large cities starting in the second half of the 19th century (including an 1866 London system powerful and large enough to transport humans during trial runs – though not intended for that purpose),[19] but later were largely abandoned.

A major network of tubes in Paris (the Paris pneumatic post) was in use until 1984, when it was abandoned in favor of computers and fax machines. The Prague pneumatic post commenced for the public in 1889 in Prague, now in the Czech Republic, and the network extended approximately 60 kilometres (37 mi).

Pneumatic post stations usually connect post offices, stock exchanges, banks and ministries. Italy was the only country to issue postage stamps (between 1913 and 1966) specifically for pneumatic post. Austria, France, and Germany issued postal stationery for pneumatic use.

Typical applications are in banks, hospitals, and supermarkets. Many large retailers used pneumatic tubes to transport cheques or other documents from cashiers to the accounting office.

United States Post Office pneumatic mail tubes in operation in New York City

Historical use

* 1853: linking the London Stock Exchange to the city's main telegraph station (a distance of 220 yards (200 m) )
* 1861: in London with the London Pneumatic Despatch Company providing services from Euston railway station to the General Post Office and Holborn
* 1864: in Liverpool connecting the Electric and International Telegraph Company telegraph stations in Castle Street, Water Street, and the Exchange Buildings[20]
* 1864: in Manchester to connect the Electric and International Telegraph Company central offices at York Street, with branch offices at Dulcie Buildings and Mosley Street[21]
* 1865: in Birmingham, installed by the Electric and International Telegraph Company between the New Exchange Buildings in Stephenson Place and their branch office in Temple Buildings, New Street.[22]
* 1865: in Berlin (until 1976), the Rohrpost, a system 400 kilometers in total length at its peak in 1940
* 1866: in Paris (until 1984, 467 kilometers in total length from 1934). John Steinbeck mentioned this system in The Short Reign of Pippin IV: A Fabrication: "You pay no attention to the pneumatique."
* 1871: in Dublin[23]
* 1875: in Vienna (until 1956) - including the unrealised corpse network of Zentralfriedhof[24]
* 1887: in Prague (until 2002 due to flooding), the Prague pneumatic post[25]
* 1893: the first North American system was established in Philadelphia by Postmaster General John Wanamaker, who had previously employed the technology at his department store. The system, which initially connected the downtown post offices, was later extended to the principal railroad stations, the stock exchanges, and many private businesses . It was operated by the United States Post Office Department which later opened similar systems in cities such as New York (connecting Brooklyn and Manhattan), Chicago, Boston, and St. Louis. The last of these closed in 1953.[26]
* Other cities: Munich, Rio de Janeiro, Buenos Aires, Hamburg, Rome, Naples, Milan, Marseille, Melbourne, Tokyo, Osaka, Nagoya, Kobe,[27] Zurich, Lausanne, Geneva, Bern, Basel

[28]

* 1950s-1989: CIA headquarters (now known as the Old Headquarters Building)[29]

### In public transportation

19th century

In 1812, George Medhurst first proposed, but never implemented, blowing passenger carriages through a tunnel.[30] Precursors of pneumatic tube systems for passenger transport, the atmospheric railway (for which the tube was laid between the rails, with a piston running in it suspended from the train through a sealable slot in the top of the tube) were operated as follows:[31]

* 1844–54: Dublin and Kingstown Railway's Dalkey Atmospheric Railway between Kingstown (Dún Laoghaire) and Dalkey, Ireland (1.75 mi [2.82 km])
* 1846–47: London and Croydon Railway between Croydon and New Cross, London, England (7.5 mi [12.1 km])
* 1847–48: Isambard Kingdom Brunel's South Devon Railway between Exeter and Newton Abbot, England (20 mi [32 km])
* 1847–60: Paris–Saint-Germain railway between Bois de Vésinet and Saint-Germain-en-Laye, France (2 km [1.2 mi])

In 1861, the London Pneumatic Despatch Company built a system large enough to move a person, although it was intended for parcels. The inauguration of the new Holborn Station on 10 October 1865 was marked by having the Duke of Buckingham, the chairman, and some company directors blown through the tube to Euston (a five-minute trip).

Alfred Ely Beach's experimental pneumatic elevated subway on display in 1867

The 550-metre (1,804 ft) Crystal Palace pneumatic railway was exhibited at the Crystal Palace in 1864. This was a prototype for a proposed Waterloo and Whitehall Railway that would have run under the River Thames linking Waterloo and Charing Cross. Digging commenced in 1865 but was halted in 1868 due to financial problems.

In 1867 at the American Institute Fair in New York, Alfred Ely Beach demonstrated a 100-foot (30 m) long, 6-foot (1.8 m) diameter pipe that was capable of moving 12 passengers plus a conductor.[32] One year after New York City's first-ever elevated rail line went into service; in 1869, the Beach Pneumatic Transit Company of New York secretly constructed a 312-foot (95 m) long, 8.9-foot (2.7 m) diameter pneumatic subway line under Broadway, to demonstrate the possibilities of the new transport mode.[32] The line only operated for a few months, closing after Beach was unsuccessful in getting permission to extend it – Boss Tweed, a corrupt influential politician, did not want it to go ahead as he was intending to personally invest into competing schemes for an elevated rail line.[33]

20th century

In the 1920s, the Canadian Pacific and Canadian National Railways cooperated together to lay an elaborate system of 4,500 metre pneumatic tubing between four of their offices to Postal Station A at Union Station in Toronto, Canada. There was also a connection to the mail room at the Royal York Hotel. The newspapers the Star and Telegram joined into the system, laying pipes.[34] In the 1960s, Lockheed and MIT with the United States Department of Commerce conducted feasibility studies on a vactrain system powered by ambient atmospheric pressure and "gravitational pendulum assist" to connect cities on the country's East Coast.[32] They calculated that the run between Philadelphia and New York City would average 174 meters per second, that is 626 km/h (388 mph). When those plans were abandoned as too expensive, Lockheed engineer L.K. Edwards founded Tube Transit, Inc. to develop technology based on "gravity-vacuum transportation". In 1967 he proposed a Bay Area Gravity-Vacuum Transit for California that would run alongside the then-under construction BART system. It was never built.

21st century

Research into trains running in partially evacuated tubes, such as the Vactrain and Hyperloop, is continuing.

### Pneumatic elevator

A pneumatic elevator[35] consists of a cylindrical vertical shaft (typically made of transparent plastic), and a passenger capsule (also transparent) within the shaft which moves vertically by means of differential air pressure above and below. The main advantage that it requires neither a pit below or a loft above the shaft.

For ascending operations, a vacuum pump at the top of the elevator shaft creates a low pressure by drawing air from above the capsule while below the greater normal atmospheric pressure is permitted to enter at the lower (ground floor) level below the capsule providing lift.

To descend, electronically controlled valves inside the tubular shaft regulate the entry and exit of air within the cylinder lowering the car smoothly by means of programmed operation. In the event of a failure of the vacuum pump or electronically controlled valves, the trapped volume of air below the capsule acts as a cushion that is allowed to slowly escape by means of a mechanical valve, gently returning the capsule to the lowest level.

### In money transfer

Main article: Engineering:Cash carrier

In large retail stores, pneumatic tube systems were used to transport sales slips and money from the salesperson to a centralized tube room, where cashiers could make change, reference credit records, and so on.[36]

Many banks with drive-throughs also use pneumatic tubes.[8]

### In medicine

Many hospitals have pneumatic tube systems which send samples to laboratories.[1][37] Blood preservations are transported, where weight and transport duration matter as well as preventing haemolysis caused by centrifugal and accelerating forces. Pneumatic tube systems are also used in hospitals to transport X-rays, patient documents, general documents, drugs and test results.

6-inch (152 mm) pneumatic tube systems have been shown to handle heavy liter-capacity IV bags with significantly fewer jams compared to the 4-inch (102 mm) systems.

### Department stores

To manage its mail order business the department store Sears built "massive warehouses, like its central facility in Chicago, in which messages to various departments and assembly workers were sent through pneumatic tubes".[38] Many other department stores had pneumatic tube systems in the 20th century, such as Jacksons of Reading and Myer in Melbourne, Australia. The National Library of Australia's building (opened 1968), incorporates a pneumatic tube system for sending book requests from the reading rooms to the book stacks. The system is no longer used, but remains partially operational, and is demonstrated on behind the scenes tours.

### Waste disposal

Main article: Automated vacuum collection

The use of pneumatic tubes in waste disposal units include the Masjid al-Haram, Mecca,[39] GlashusEtt in the Hammarby Sjöstad area of Stockholm (Sweden), Old Montreal (Canada), Disney World (US) and Roosevelt Island and Hudson Yards (US).

### In production

Pneumatic tube systems are used in production plants. Uses include conveying spare parts, measuring instruments, tools, or work pieces alongside conveyor belts or in the production process. In industrial laboratories samples are transported through the pneumatic tube systems. These can be conveyed in any physical state (solid, liquid, gas) and at any temperature. For example, the industrial company ThyssenKrupp sends 900 °C (1,650 °F) steel samples through pneumatic tubes at a rate of 22 m (72 ft) per second from the furnace to the laboratory.[40]

## Technical characteristics

Modern systems (for smaller, i.e. “normal”, tube diameters as used in the transport of small capsules) reach speeds of around 7.5 m (25 ft) per second, though some historical systems already achieved speeds of 10 m (33 ft) per second.[1][41] At the same time, varying air pressures allow capsules to brake slowly, removing the jarring arrival that used to characterise earlier systems and make them unsuitable for fragile contents.[1]

Very powerful systems can transport items with a weight of up to 50 kg (110 lb) and a diameter of up to 500 mm (20 in).[40] More than 100 lines and 1000 stations can be connected.

Further, modern systems can be computer-controlled for tracking of any specific capsule and managing priority deliveries as well as system efficiency. With this technology, time-critical items can be transported, such as tissue samples taken during a surgery in a hospital. RFID chips within the capsules gather data – e. g. about the location of the carrier, its transport speed or its destination.[42] The systems collect and save these data to help users optimize their internal processes and turnaround times. The facilities can be linked to the company's software systems, e.g. laboratory information systems, for full integration into company logistical management and production chains.

## See also

* Automated vacuum collection
* C1 Espresso
* Lamson Engineering Company Ltd
* Pipeline transport
* Prague pneumatic post, the world's last preserved pneumatic mail system
* Vactrain

## References

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 Wykes, Sara (2010-01-11). "Gone with the wind: Tubes are whisking samples across hospital". Stanford School of Medicine. http://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2010/01/gone-with-the-wind-tubes-are-whisking-samples-across-hospital.html.
2. ↑ Horst O. Hardenberg, The Middle Ages of the I.C. engine (Warrendale, 1999, 41)
3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 "Pneumatic Networks". Museum of Retrotechnology. 23 July 2008. http://douglas-self.com/MUSEUM/COMMS/pneumess/pneumess.htm.
4. ↑ Kieve, Jeffrey L., The Electric Telegraph: A Social and Economic History, p. 82, David and Charles, 1973 OCLC 655205099.
5. ↑ "How has pneumatic tube transport changed over the years?". https://www.air-log.com/en/newsarticle/how-has-the-pneumatic-tube-revolutionized.html.
6. ↑ Kieve, p. 235
7. ↑ Kieve, p. 237
8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 Buxton, Andrew (2004). Cash Carriers in Shops. Princes Risborough: Shire Publications. ISBN 978-0-7478-0615-8.
9. ↑ Edwards, Phil (2015-06-24). "The golden era of the pneumatic tube — when it carried fast food, people, and cats" (in en). https://www.vox.com/2015/6/24/8834989/when-the-pneumatic-tube-carried-fast-food-people-and-cats.
10. ↑ "How pneumatic tube transport works". 8 October 2010. http://www.explainthatstuff.com/pneumatic-tube-transport.html.
11. ↑ Janell L. Carroll, Sexuality Now: Embracing Diversity, p. 248, Cengage Learning, 2015 ISBN 1305446038.
12. ↑ "The historic Apollo Mission Control Center will be restored", Round Up Reads, NASA Johnson Space Center, 29 November 2017, retrieved and archived 3 November 2021.
13. ↑ Sandra Jones, "Five things to know about the restoration of the Apollo MCC", Round Up Reads, NASA Johnson Space Center, 16 April 2018, retrieved and archived 3 November 2021.
14. ↑ Becker, D.A. (22 June 1998). "Characterization and use of the new NIST rapid pneumatic tube irradiation facility". Journal of Radioanalytical and Nuclear Chemistry 233 (1–2): 155–160. doi:10.1007/bf02389664. Bibcode: 1998JRNC..233..155B. https://zenodo.org/record/1232540.
15. ↑ "Pneumatic Air Drive-Thru McDonald's". Waymarking website. http://www.waymarking.com/waymarks/WMM82_Pneumatic_Air_Drive_Thru_McDonalds.
16. ↑ Hardy, Quentin (March 6, 2015). "The Mechanical World". What We're Reading. The New York Times. http://news.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/03/06/what-were-reading-35/.
17. ↑ "On The Blower: London's Lost Pneumatic Messaging Tubes". Lapsed Historian. February 14, 2015. http://lapsedhistorian.com/get-blower-londons-forgotten-pneumatic-messaging-tubes/.
18. ↑ Kirby, David (2014-09-24). "Watch This 'Salmon Cannon' Shoot Endangered Fish Through a Tube—to Save Them" (in en). Archived from the original on 2014-09-26. https://web.archive.org/web/20140926072441/http://www.takepart.com/article/2014/09/23/salmon-cannon-shoots-endangered-fish-through-tube-22-mph-and-thats-good-thing.
19. ↑ Ian Steadman (18 December 2013). "London's Victorian Hyperloop: the forgotten pneumatic railway beneath the capital's streets". New Statesman (England). https://www.newstatesman.com/future-proof/2013/12/londons-victorian-hyperloop-forgotten-pneumatic-railway-beneath-capitals-street.
20. ↑ "The Pneumatic Despatch Principle in Liverpool". Sheffield Daily Telegraph (England). 30 April 1864. http://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0000250/18640430/029/0010.
21. ↑ "Pneumatics applied to Telegraphy". Cumberland and Westmorland Advertiser, and Penrith Literary Chronicle (England). 13 December 1864. http://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0001102/18641213/073/0003.
22. ↑ "The Pneumatic Desptach System". Birmingham Daily Gazette (England). 1 March 1865. http://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0000667/18650301/086/0003.
23. ↑ "Postal Telegraph in Ireland". Clare Journal, and Ennis Advertiser (Ireland). 23 February 1871. http://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0001317/18710223/045/0004.
24. ↑ Austrian Philatelic Society. "The Vienna Pneumatic Post". https://austrianphilately.com/rohrpost/index.htm.
25. ↑ "Prague's pneumatic post". Telefónica O2 Czech Republic. 2002. http://www.cz.o2.com/osobni/en/3020-o_cem_se_mluvi/105997-potrubni_posta.html.
26. ↑ Kyriakodis, Harry (11 April 2014). "Pneumatic Philadelphia". http://hiddencityphila.org/2014/04/pneumatic-philadelphia/.
27. ↑ Bush, Charles (April 2017). "Letters in a Tube: the Rise and Demise of Pneumatic Mail". History Magazine 18 (4): 33.
28. ↑ Rachele Delucchi (2020). Nischenangelegenheit - Zur Geschichte der Stadtrohrpost in der Schweiz (ca. 1920-1927). Zürich: ETH Zürich. https://www.tg.ethz.ch/fileadmin/redaktion/dokumente/Produkte/Preprints_Delucchi_34.pdf.
29. ↑ "Artifacts: Pneumatic-Tube Carrier". The CIA Museum. https://www.cia.gov/news-information/featured-story-archive/pneumatic-tube.html.
30. ↑ George Medhurst (1812). Calculations and Remarks, Tending to Prove the Practicability, Effects and Advantages of a Plan for the Rapid Conveyance of Goods and Passengers: Upon an Iron Road Through a Tube of 30 Feet in Area, by the Power and Velocity of Air. London, England: D.N. Shury. OCLC 1000841084. https://books.google.com/books?id=7AoGDIstdsEC.
31. ↑ Hadfield, Charles (1967). Atmospheric Railways. Newton Abbot: David & Charles. ISBN 0-7153-4107-3.
32. ↑ 32.0 32.1 32.2 Bellows, Alan (February 2008). "The Remarkable Pneumatic People-Mover". http://www.damninteresting.com/the-remarkable-pneumatic-people-mover/.
33. ↑ Allen, Oliver E. (Winter 1997). "New York's Secret Subway". American Heritage 12 (3). http://www.americanheritage.com/articles/magazine/it/1997/3/1997_3_44.shtml. Retrieved 12 February 2010.
34. ↑ Bateman, Chris (November 9, 2013). "That time Toronto had a system of pneumatic mail tubes" (in en). https://www.blogto.com/city/2013/11/that_time_toronto_had_a_system_of_pneumatic_mail_tubes/.
35. ↑ Knight, Will (6 May 2005). "Vacuum elevator gives users a gentle lift". New Scientist. https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn7353-vacuum-elevator-gives-users-a-gentle-lift/.
36. ↑ Charles Augustus Sweetland, Department Store Accounts 1908, p. 70
37. ↑ D. Hamill, Sean (2012-10-28). "UPMC constructing underground pneumatic tubes to link hospitals to new lab". Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. http://www.post-gazette.com/news/health/2012/10/28/UPMC-constructing-underground-pneumatic-tubes-to-link-hospitals-to-new-lab/stories/201210280156.
38. ↑ Thompson, Derek (2017-09-25). "The History of Sears Predicts Nearly Everything Amazon Is Doing" (in en-US). https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/09/sears-predicts-amazon/540888/.
39. ↑ Spertus, Tim De Chant, Juliette (2015-09-25). "Inside Mecca's Life-or-Death Crowd Control Design". Wired. ISSN 1059-1028. https://www.wired.com/2015/09/mecca-hajj-design/. Retrieved 2020-08-05.
40. ↑ 40.0 40.1 Schreibelmayer, Stefan (24 October 2012). "Hörtig schaut (gar nicht) in die Röhre" (in de). Wirtschaftsmagazin (Nordbayerischer Kurier) (10–2012): p. 11. https://issuu.com/tmtde/docs/wirtschaftsbeilage.
41. ↑ "Capsule Pipelines – Mainland Europe". Capsu.org website. http://www.capsu.org/history/telegram_conveyors.html.
42. ↑ Fleet, Nadja (21 August 2017). "New Royal Adelaide Hospital: Futuristic NRAH features robots, state-of-the-art hi-tech equipment". The Advertiser. https://www.adelaidenow.com.au/rah/new-royal-adelaide-hospital-futuristic-nrah-features-robots-stateoftheart-hitech-equipment/news-story/f966f535c051f792956f976c889c4ac5.

* M. Marcu-Pipeline conveyors(pneumatic wheeled pipeline conveyors-state of the art/photos-1990) at page 45 in the "Material handling in pyrometallurgy": proceedings of the International Symposium on Materials Handling in Pyrometallurgy, Hamilton, Ontario, August 26–30, 1990
* Twigge-Molecey, T. Price, Metallurgical Society of CIM. Non-Ferrous Pyrometallurgy Section Pergamon Press, Sep 30, 1990 - Technology & Engineering - 227 pages

## Further reading

* Archibald Williams, "Pneumatic Mail Tubes", in The Romance of Modern Mechanism, Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1907. Reprinted by Nabu Press, 2010. ISBN 1-146-99537-7.

## External links

* Site describing Pneumatic Trash and Linen Systems, with photos
* Describes Paris pneumatic post, also mentions others
* "Dial Switches Message Tubes" 1951 article that describes with photos and drawing the basics of how the system operates
* Site describing pneumatic post systems in England, France, Berlin, the US, and Prague, with photos
* Article describing the pneumatic post system in Prague
* Pneumatic mail article from the U.S. National Postal Museum
* The pneumatic dispatch... (1868) by Alfred Beach (scanned pages)
* Beach Pneumatic Alfred Beach's Pneumatic Subway and the beginnings of rapid transit in New York
* Futuristics: Pneumatic Transportation (contains historical illustrations)
* Capsule Pipelines: good historical information, original author of info found on "capsu.org" pages.
* Pneumatic Tube System - How it works
* Cash Railway Website: pneumatic tubes used for cash handling in shops

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* Spintronics
* Thermal copper pillar bump
* Twistronics

Energy|

| Production|

* Airborne wind turbine
* Artificial photosynthesis
* Biofuels
* Carbon-neutral fuel
* Concentrated solar power
* Fusion power
* Home fuel cell
* Hydrogen economy
* Methanol economy
* Molten salt reactor
* Nantenna
* Photovoltaic pavement
* Space-based solar power
* Vortex engine

|

Storage|

* Beltway battery
* Compressed air energy storage
* Flywheel energy storage
* Grid energy storage
* Lithium–air battery
* Molten-salt battery
* Nanowire battery
* Research in lithium-ion batteries
* Silicon–air battery
* Thermal energy storage
* Ultracapacitor

Other|

* Smart grid
* Wireless power

Information and
communications

* Ambient intelligence
* Internet of things
* Artificial intelligence
* Applications of artificial intelligence
* Progress in artificial intelligence
* Machine translation
* Mobile translation
* Machine vision
* Semantic Web
* Speech recognition
* Atomtronics
* Carbon nanotube field-effect transistor
* Cybermethodology
* Fourth-generation optical discs
* 3D optical data storage
* Holographic data storage
* GPGPU
* Memory
* CBRAM
* FRAM
* Millipede
* MRAM
* NRAM
* PRAM
* Racetrack memory
* RRAM
* SONOS
* Optical computing
* RFID
* Chipless RFID
* Software-defined radio
* Three-dimensional integrated circuit

Manufacturing|

* 3D printing
* Claytronics
* Molecular assembler
* Utility fog

Materials science|

* Aerogel
* Amorphous metal
* Artificial muscle
* Conductive polymer
* Femtotechnology
* Fullerene
* Graphene
* High-temperature superconductivity
* High-temperature superfluidity
* Linear acetylenic carbon
* Metamaterials
* Metamaterial cloaking
* Metal foam
* Multi-function structures
* Nanotechnology
* Carbon nanotubes
* Molecular nanotechnology
* Nanomaterials
* Picotechnology
* Programmable matter
* Quantum dots
* Silicene
* Superalloy
* Synthetic diamond

Military|

* Antimatter weapon
* Caseless ammunition
* Directed-energy weapon
* Laser
* Maser
* Particle-beam weapon
* Sonic weapon
* Coilgun
* Railgun
* Plasma weapon
* Pure fusion weapon
* Stealth technology
* Vortex ring gun

Neuroscience|

* Artificial brain
* Brain–computer interface
* Electroencephalography
* Mind uploading
* Brain-reading
* Neuroinformatics
* Neuroprosthetics
* Bionic eye
* Brain implant
* Exocortex
* Retinal implant

Quantum|

* Quantum algorithms
* Quantum amplifier
* Quantum bus
* Quantum channel
* Quantum circuit
* Quantum complexity theory
* Quantum computing
* Quantum cryptography
* Quantum dynamics
* Quantum electronics
* Quantum error correction
* Quantum imaging
* Quantum information
* Quantum key distribution
* Quantum logic
* Quantum logic gates
* Quantum machine
* Quantum machine learning
* Quantum metamaterial
* Quantum metrology
* Quantum network
* Quantum neural network
* Quantum optics
* Quantum programming
* Quantum sensing
* Quantum simulator
* Quantum teleportation

Robotics|

* Domotics
* Nanorobotics
* Powered exoskeleton
* Self-reconfiguring modular robot
* Swarm robotics
* Uncrewed vehicle

Space science|

| Launch|

* Fusion rocket
* Non-rocket spacelaunch
* Mass driver
* Orbital ring
* Skyhook
* Space elevator
* Space fountain
* Space tether
* Reusable launch system

|

Propulsion|

* Beam-powered propulsion
* Ion thruster
* Laser propulsion
* Plasma propulsion engine
* Helicon thruster
* VASIMR
* Nuclear pulse propulsion
* Solar sail

Other|

* Interstellar travel
* Propellant depot
* Laser communication in space

Transport|

| Aerial|

* Adaptive compliant wing
* Backpack helicopter
* Delivery drone
* Flying car
* High-altitude platform
* Jet pack
* Pulse detonation engine
* Scramjet
* Spaceplane
* Supersonic transport

|

Land|

* Airless tire
* Alternative fuel vehicle
* Hydrogen vehicle
* Driverless car
* Ground effect train
* Hyperloop
* Maglev train
* Personal rapid transit
* Transit Elevated Bus
* Vactrain
* Vehicular communication systems

Pipeline|

* Pneumatic transport
* Automated vacuum collection

Other|

* Anti-gravity
* Cloak of invisibility
* Digital scent technology
* Force field
* Plasma window
* Immersive virtual reality
* Magnetic refrigeration
* Phased-array optics

Topics|

* Collingridge dilemma
* Differential technological development
* Disruptive Innovation
* Ephemeralization
* Exploratory engineering
* Fictional technology
* Proactionary principle
* Technological change
* Technological unemployment
* Technological convergence
* Technological evolution
* Technological paradigm
* Technology forecasting
* Accelerating change
* Moore's law
* Technological singularity
* Technology scouting
* Technology readiness level
* Technology roadmap
* Transhumanism

* Category
* List

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Original source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pneumatic tube. Read more

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