November 30, 2006

Pneumatic tubes: 200 years of moving stuff around.

Something muteboy said in a thread about pencils made me think of pneumatic tubes! I thought this technology was long defunct, but it is alive and well, particularly in banks, supermarkets and hospitals, though I haven't seen a cartridge or heard that signature "foop!" sound in a long time. At one point it was hoped we could move people (scroll down) around through the tubes, even to the extent that a people-moving tube system was proposed to be built alongside California's BART system. I used to dream of a tube system dedicated to the delivery of fresh, yummy snacks to wherever you happened to be. Except in your car, of course, that's just silly!

posted by Koko 17 years ago
  • This post both sucks and blows. (Sorry.) The U.S. border guys at Lewiston have a healthy pneumatic system going, to get passports out from the car lanes to the main building, (which I would guess dates from the early 60s). Their tubes are oval-shaped, presumably to better fit documents. Very satisfying 'fwoomp'.
  • Okay, I've sent away for my own Zapato Personal Pneumatic Tube Pod Mark IV. But why is the guy in the tube naked? What aren't they telling me? BTW, Capt., I've crossed at Lewiston a zillion times and have never had my passport tubed. Wonder why?
  • My parents are landed, so they have to renew their visas every so often. They get tubed on a regular basis.
  • No discussion of pneumatic tubes is complete without a contribution (and demonstration) from resident expert John Hodgman.
  • To me it was always: "foop, Ahhhhhh".
  • And, if any of you have ever had the opportunity to see a pneumatic switching hub, where the tubes go to various address, you will agree that it is very cool.
  • Cool post. Tubular, even. I was thrilled to see one of these systems in use at a large grocery store. The possibilities for creative abuse by employees are endless.
  • These are too flippin' cool, and I need one. My department has half its offices on the first floor, and half on the fourth.
  • This is how Ted Stevens thinks of the Internet
  • *pops a banana for Koko into the old MoFi tube* *foop!*
  • The Beach Pneumatic Transit Co I cannot think of pneumatic tubes without thinking of Brazil.
  • I can't think of Brazil witholut thinking of nuts. I don't know why this is.
  • Stop naming nuts!
  • The tube system was the best part of my last job. (always made me think of Brazil, too!)
  • I'm sorry, but "foop" is a trademark of OneSwellFoop NetWorks and is being used here without permission here. May I suggest the alternative sound effect of "fwip". And when I think of pneumatic tubes I think of Futurama or the Jetsons, and look what I googled up, a real pneumatic elevator.
  • Last link is just too cool. First link is...well...disturbing.
  • When I think of pneumatic tubes, I think of this limo.
  • Sorry, foop is the only way to spell that sound. But you forgot the lalel lalel lalel lalel *clatter* sound right before the tube comes in. When I worked at the hospital, we tubed to 15 different stations. Unfortunately, the tubes often were removed to empty, and then would tended to pile up in one or two locations outside the system, so calling for a tube didn't do any good. There would then be phone calls and much soto-voice swearing. Tube Wars.
  • This is off-topic, but is it true that in Canada, YouTube is called YouHoser?
  • You could send poop It would go foop!
  • Many supermarkets in the UK still use them to get bags of coins to the checkouts on request. Also I worked at a company in Switzerland which used them, and the stations had numberpads to dial the destination. Hodgson wan't far off - I once had to send a floppy disc by pneumatic tube. The most basic inter-office comms system I saw was in a dept where the office was on a mezzanine over the shop floor. Papers were passed up and down in a bulldog clip on a piece of string.
  • A. I've also crossed many times at Lewiston, and was never once tubed. I must look honest. 2. The "old building" part of my bank has not a tube system, but cool old mail slots on every floor next to the elevator. They dump to what used to be a mailroom. c. I once saw a man at one of our ATM drive-throughs have a tantrum because he couldn't cash his check. He tossed the tube thing (what are they? The tubes are well, the tubes they go in.)on the ground outside his red sports car, slammed it into gear, and tore out of there with tires squealing. The tube carrier thing was firmly lodged under his front tire, and sailed across the parking lot like a missile, slamming into the side of the ATM kiosk I was working in and causing the whole thing to dent and shake. Then, once he realized his check and license were still in the tube, he had to sheepishly come back and look all over the ground amongst the plastic remains. I, meanwhile, locked myself in the ATM kiosk and watched from the peephole, laughing.
  • Also, the actual sound is "fwoop".
  • OK, on another review of the postal link, they are called tubes. So the tubes move through the tubes?
  • Ooops.
  • *tweeee!* Four consecutive posts without a reference to Bush sucking - 10 yards! /fwoop
  • Um. Quick. Um. Bush should be...um...no wait, wait, I got it. No, um... Yeah, this administration is going down the tubes! Yeah, that's it!
  • When I was a kid in church, I used to think that the second verse of "Were You There When They Crucified my Lord?" was "Were you there when they placed him in the tubes?"
  • I have de plegm in de tubes.
  • Der flim is ookey-dokey!
  • De plegm, you know, det comes in de tubes?
  • You'd have to ask him