The Tubes Pneumatique of Paris date as far back as 1867, but the pneumatic system was originally introduced in London in 1858 (Morss). The first tubes connected the Bourse or stock exchange and the Grand Hotel beginning what would become an enormous system several hundred miles in tubes (Scientific American 1884). Like the system used in America, the tube is filled with compressed air in a partial vacuum.
Instead of using air pumps or any engines, the Parisian system worked using power from the city's reservoir. Originally there were three large connected iron plated vessels that could hold 1,200 gallons each. The first vessel was filled with water, which was pushed into the other two vessels, which were filled with air. The air becomes compressed and once a valve was opened the air escaped rushing with force into the tubes (London Engineer).
The height of pneumatic post in Paris was in the 1930's where a letter, which the French called a pneu could get anywhere in the city in about an hour. 240 miles of tubing, just a few meters under the ground, created the net like system that laid just underneath Paris, carrying letter at an average speed of 40 m.p.h. The pneumatic systems were also created in the French cities Lyons and Marseilles as well as in Berlin since 1866 and Vienna since 1875(Morss). After World War II the system was expanded and modernized but eventually began to decline and the Parisian pneumatic postal system ended in 1984. Now Parisians are offered "same day" delivery post express to replace the pneumatique, which costs two to three times more than sending a pneu, which would arrive not just in the same day but in an hour or at maximum two hours (Vinocur).
The Prague pneumatic post was completed in 1899 with 60 kilometers that could transport letter, documents, and small parcel at 30 m.p.h. Prague's pneumatic post is the only working historical model left in the world. Today not much has changed except the number of parcel sent which use to number in the millions each year and now has dwindled into thousands every month. The post employs fifteen people altogether?– nine workers and six dispatchers. Incoming parcels are indicated by a blinking red light and outgoing parcels by a green light. Every parcel must make a stop on Jindrisska street as the network is star shaped (Drake).
The telegram and pneumatic post are in many ways very similar. Both send messages floating on various airwaves, but it was because of the traffic over the electrical lines that pneumatic telegraph was quickly and widely popular in Paris. For a while to relieve the heavy pressure on telegraphs, telegrams were delivered by couriers on bicycles, every fifteen minutes to and from the Bourse during business hours. After a line was created connecting the Bourse and the Grand Hotel, approximately 700 meters, the next line connected the Grand Hotel to central station on rue de Grenelle St. Germain and that station back to the Bourse. New lines connecting major stations grew rapidly and thousands of telegrams were sent over pneumatic tubes daily (Morss).
Telegrams and pneus were responsible for informing generations of births, deaths, marriages, lottery winners, and broken dates. Pneus were best used sending theatre tickets or contracts, which could not only hold small pieces of paper but could be written in someone's own handwriting (Vinocur). Telegrams had their own language of quickness and saturated content because of the cost per word. As 'tele-' means far in Greek and 'gram' means written or writing, 'pneuma' means soul or vital spirit.
In Fran?ois Truffaut's 1968 film Baisers Volès (Stolen Kisses), a letter is sent through the rattling pipes in the sewers. The film follows the letter as it place in a slot labeled, Pneumatiques and passes through the hands of female dispatchers and placed in the tubes. The film follows the pipes containing the small letter as it races through the underground tunnels that coordinate with the above streets. The pneu passes through the underground Rue de Richelieu and the Champs Elysees before arriving at it's destination, only to be responsible for uniting two unusual lovers. Pneumatic tubes held a spiritual meaning. In theology, "pneumatology" was the belief in "intermediary spirits" whether between person and person or a person and God (Steinweg).
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