The Postal Service first used pneumatic tubes between New York and Brooklyn in 1897; the system expanded to connect individual post offices in Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens. Similar systems were used in Boston, Philadelphia and Chicago in the United States, and in Europe, Prague, London, Paris, and Russia. [photopress:Pneumatic_Tube_Canister___National_Postal_Museum_.jpg,thumb,alignright]
At its peak, New York’s pneumatic tubes carried 10 million letters a day |
At its peak, the New York system had 27 miles of pipes, and carried 10 million letters per day. In “You’ve Got Mail,” an Op-Ed piece published in the Times on December 2, 2007, Henry E. Nass proposes that we return to using the tubes. He makes a strong case that the tubes would reduce vehicular traffic, speed mail and parcel deliveries, and reduce pollution.
Exactly why the system was mothballed is puzzling. According to Nass:
The pneumatic tube system continued to operate, carrying about a third of the city’s mail, until the end of 1953, when amid a political fight over the post office’s lease with the company that ran the network, it was decided that the system was too expensive to operate and that it was more efficient to use trucks.
The calculation that tubes, unimpeded by traffic, needing no gasoline or repair, and never being involved in accidents, could be less efficient than trucks, seems grossly incorrect, even without the environmental and health costs accounted for. Michael Wofsey, writing in Wired, reported that the Post Office’s abandonment of pneumatic tubes may be similar to Los Angeles ending its streetcar system.
In 1953, the post office’s higher-ups decided to abandon the system, letting the tubing decay into an underground Grand Prix for the city’s rodent population. Arthur E. Summerfield had been appointed postmaster general under President Eisenhower and had claimed that neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night could save the tube system. He insisted that the city’s mail could be delivered more cheaply with trucks than with compressed air. Conspiracy theorists allege that the pneumatic tube system was dismantled primarily to sell a new fleet of General Motors delivery trucks to the city of New York. As evidence, they point out that Summerfield owned a profitable GM dealership and that Secretary of Defense Charles E. Wilson – appointed alongside Summerfield – was on the GM board of directors. “They had us shut down the tube systems,” said one postal employee who worked with the tubes 50 years ago and still wishes to remain anonymous. “And then all of a sudden we started getting GM delivery trucks.”
Here’s some other information about tube-delivery systems that illustrates their utility:
In the 1980′s, William Vandersteel patented a non-pneumatic tube system which could carry freight on pallets. [photopress:SUBTRANS_rendering_by_Wm_Vandersteel_via_US_DOT.jpg,thumb,alignright] The United States Department of Transportation evaluated Vandersteel’s SUBTRANS system - but it doesn’t seem to have gained a constituency.
As of 1994, according to the DOT, the following systems were in operation:
Nippon Steel Corporation and Daifuku Machinery Works Ltd., using an early license from TRANSCO of Houston, Texas, have built a 0.6-m- (2-ft-) diameter, 1.5-km (0.9-mi), double line to move burnt lime in Nippon Steel’s Muroran Number 2 steel plant. (8) This elevated line (figure 3) was built in the mid-1980s and uses capsule trains (two cars per train) to move 22,000 metric tons (24,266 short tons) per month. This system is called AIRAPID.
Sumitomo Cement Co. built a similar system in 1983 to move limestone 3.2 km (2 mi) between a mine and their cement plant. (9) The 1-m- (3.2-ft-) diameter pipe carries three car capsule trains delivering 2.2 million metric tons (2.43 million short tons) per year. This system was originally based on a Russian license but was considerably redesigned by the company.
A number of tube systems, called TRANSPROGRESS systems, for moving crushed rock are being used in the former Soviet Union. (10) An 11-km (6.8-mi) line for garbage was built in 1983 from St. Petersburg to an outlying processing facility using TRANSPROGRESS technology. This technology has also been applied to intraplant systems.
PUBLIC ROADS On-Line (Autumn 1994): Tube Freight Transportation.
{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }
I am gratified that you have taken an interest in the Op Ed piece I wrote that was published in the N.Y. Times, City Section (Opinion Page) 10 weeks ago. Other than one letter in response to the piece the following week, I don’t have other written evidence that it was even noticed by anyone else. I might mention that the piece was significantly edited due to space reasons, and a number of graphic element including early news stories back to 1891, and a number of images I submitted and expected to be published with the story, were omitted. (You should note that since this article was submitted in Sept. ’06, the N.Y. Times has actually shrunk, being physically been cut back in overall page size.)
Your critique does bring to light a point well taken that was lost to the editing process, mainly that there were significant “political aspects” involved in the closing down of the postal pneumatic tube system at the beginning of the Eisenhower administrations. It doesn’t mention that the siting of new post offices that wouldn’t be on the pipes’ path also would reduce the system’s efficiency if it were to continue in use. Also that “the pipes” had reached a capacity and couldn’t “grow in place” without a replacement of the entire network, with a new diameter beyond the original eight inches, and a new route to include the newly established post offices necessary for the growing city. To put the blame for closing down the system solely on increasing lease payments would hardly be accurate, nor is it what I wrote in full, nor what I intended to be the readers’ general understanding. The view presented in the newspaper is a consequence of editing perhaps necessary in today’s new economic newpaper environment.
I should also add that to say that the systems being used in other American cities, and also several European cities were “similar” as you did in your opening paragraph generalizes the situatiuon in the same way that one might if one said that apples, oranges, grapes, cherries, and even pomagranates are all “similar”. It certainly true they are all relatively round, but I think that about where their similarity ends. Each postal pneumatic system I believe has been “relatively unique” in its dimentions, carrying capacities, years of operation, and even operational process and management.
I do thank you though nevertheless for taking an interest in this topic and hope you will stay “tuned in” for further developments. I learned several new things from you blog comments. Thanks again. Henry E Nass / NYC