The Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis) 1868-1895, 1879-02-05
PNEUMATIC TUBES.
How the Western Union Telegram
Company Saves Money by Econo-
MIXING Labor.

Ao" the Western Union Telegraph
Company Saves Money by Econo-
mining Labor.
New York Correspondence of Philadelphia
Press.
Great are the economies OF machinery.
Two years ago the Western Union Telegraph
company came to the conclusion that the
business of getting messages from the main
office on Broadway 10 Wall street and back
was costing the company and public more
tnan was necessary. In order to cheaper
the expense of the large volume of business
emanatipg in that part of the town, the COM
pany laid brass pipes, properly protected
from the moisture, down Broadway and
Wall and Broad streets to the Stock Ez-
change and the branch telegraph Office there,
and other pipes down to the Cotton Ex-
change, and to the branch offices near by
there. These were pneumatic tubes, two
and one fourth inches in diameter. They
were four in number-two of them up
tubes, as they are called, worked by
exhaustiDg the air and making
vacuum, worked by pressure
the messages were rolled up thereafter and
placed in little leather boxes, open at one
end, and about six inches long, and shot
back and forth between the main and branch
Offices, instead of being sent by messenger
boys or telegraphed over the wires. The
company is now exchanging from 3Gc0 to
I 600 and more messages a dsy through their
Broadway and the branch offices at and near
the Stock and Cotton Exchanges Ii saves
thereby the labor OF at least % telegraph op-
orators, and the public is saved much ex-
pense. The tubes are, two of them, 100
feet long 1.-THE Wall street tubes1 and two are
respectively 5000 and !. 500 feet long. They
are worked by steam engine, which has
capacity OF I6 hOrse Dower, but which is
never called upon for half It's resources An
engineer and four boys at the tubes are all
the employees needed in place of the %
skilled operators. This system has worked
SO well In the business emanatlng IN the
commercial and financial quarters of the
city, that il is to be extended 10 q new GUAR
ter-namely, Printing House square. Just
before the hard freeze of last
week, gang OF men was en-
ployed to break ground for laying pipes up
Broadway TO the Tow of newspaper offices in
Printing House Square. The frost stopped
the street work temporarily. but this week
the interior pipes are being put into the
newspaper Offices, ready to make q connec-
ton with the others when laid. There will
he only one pipe carried 10 Newspaper Row.
II will be Il down" pipe, and will carry the
loads of both special and Associated Press
dispatches which are sent daily and nightly
from the Western Union building to the Of
fees of the press. The tube will be operated.
however, from time to time, IS an 'sup'i
pipe, after the proper signals so as TO bring
back the empty boxes. The pipe will be 81 I
inches in diameter, and 5000 feat of it viii
be employed. Only the morning papers are
taking advantage of the new system. The
offices which do have the Tubes will be great
gamers They will get their dispatches Is
minutes earlier, at the lesst-an important
matter late at night. A message will be de-
liyered in 80 seconds. The western Union
and Associated Press will be able to cave tho
expense of q great crowd of messenger boys.
The pipes are being laid under the direction
of MIR. Brown. assistant superin.en dent oil
the Western Union.