When I was a kid, the bank tellers would put candy in the canister along with the bank docs/money for parents who brought their kids to the bank. Shout out to those tellers for a great childhood memory.
Too many modern people erroneously believe that technology only includes electronics. Pneumatic systems are tech. The hammer is tech. Domesticating and putting animals to work is tech. And it's all equally amazing and never quite as simply as most would think.
I actually had the opportunity to fully design & fabricate a pneumatic tube capsule to deliver and distribute medical supplies, pharmaceuticals and even lab tests that would shoot from any zone in the hospital in under 60 seconds for one of the newest and most high tech hospital in my country. It was quite stressful working with million digit system, a blockage would have caused SERIOUSLY major issues, I was very nervous for that first test but am happy to say I nailed the dimensions on only the 2nd iteration and it made its maiden voyage across the hospital flying goods distributed by an automated robotic pharmacist. That memory will live with me forever, from CAD to Fab, I poured a metric butt tonne of elbow grease on it. Bonus fact: The first video with the red capsule is called a “Swiss Log”
I did an internship and my bachelor thesis at swisslog. Was a nice time and interesting tech. All the automation for the medical distribution is insane. Never thought it existed before
We have pneumatic post at our hospital. Incredibly useful for transporting paperwork, samples, small tools or items. Saves a ton of walking and clothes changing.
Some Walmart Pharmacies do use pneumatic tubes for their drive thru pickup. That's because the pharmacy is at one end and the place for the drive thru is at the other. This actually protects pharmacy employees from potential harm in the process of dispensing medication.
Walgreens has these systems as well in most cases. However they have very rigid guidelines on what can go in them as the sudden stop at the end of the ride can break glass/plastic bottles with liquid in them and some other sensitive medications. I tended to see most of the locations shut down the vacuum tube lane and just use a drawer so they do not have to ask a customer to get in the back of the line because their medication can not go in that lane.
Hospitals have a ridiculously hi tech version. Blood samples, in tubes with barcodes, are loaded in and sent from the front of house, to the lab. At the lab, it will be automatically be dispensed, sorted from the barcode, and loaded into the testing machine. Incredibly fast and sterile.
@@ActualKirgenthey still have one in full operation at my local Walgreens since there are two lanes, with the one away from the window having one and the one close to it just using a drawer
@@Obscurai You can still use cash at Costco, but yes they did have the pneumatic systems. I remember having to wait one time cause the Costco register told the cashier it needed to put x amount of money in the tube.
And if you want a blast in the past, John Oliver in Last Week Tonight discussed about it in one of the older episodes (I think it was in 2015), and then fired his own salmon cannon in the studio with....4th wall breaking results. 🤣
These systems are still used in some large supermarkets nearby to allow the workers on the register to send and receive notes to/from the cash room when their tills are over a certain capacity or they're short on some for change, without having people walking back/forth through the store carrying large amounts of cash.
As a kid I loved watching the Pneumatic tubes working in my local Tesco supermarket, the cashier would send whatever through it and it would be whisked away, strange how we didn’t really notice all the tubes and stations at each till disappearing, I guess smart devices and WiFi etc kinda took over in a far more efficient way
As an RN, tube systems have been part of my workplace from the start. They are just ideal for that application. Anecdotally, they seem pretty reliable too. I can count on one hand the number of times the tube system broke down at hospitals I've worked at, and regular maintenance isn't done all that often. Also...they result in a hilarious scene in the movie Tommy Boy.
Banks aren’t looking to replace them anytime soon. They’re still installed at newly installed sites, although more and more often the person you’re talking to is in a central location and the local branch tellers are following directions for physical objects from them, rather than talking to the customer directly.
It was not that long ago that many department stores used them before the days of electronic credit approval. If you wanted to purchase something with your store charge account, the sales clerk would send the paperwork to the credit office who would look up your account and either approve or decline the charge. Some stores also used them for cash purchases. The sales slip and your cash would be sent to the credit office. A few minutes later your receipt and your change would come back. Some banks and pharmacies are still using them for drive up service.
I used to work in a Tesco supermarket and we used pods to send cash from the checkouts to the cash office. You would take the notes out of the till, screw it into a capsule and a pneumatic tube would send it very fast. That way you didn’t have to walk through the store carrying cash, it was all sent through tubes and locked away.
In southern New England, my bank, and many others in the area, are hybrid, with ATMs against the building, and a pneumatic tube in the next lane. I've had the same bank account for over twenty-five years.
There is a bar in Milwaukee WI that uses a pneumatic tube to shake drinks. Sends your drink for a trip around the whole building with a bunch of twists and turns, and since the tube is clear you get to watch.
hospital manager from north Italy here, we use pneumatic tube mail to quickly send samples to the labs that are located on floor -2 also blood bags where needed (usually E.R.)
I previously worked at a movie theater and each box office had 1 of these for doing money order changes when more coins or lower denomination bills were needed. It helped managers from needing to walk downstairs to collect the larger bills, go back upstairs to the safe to exchange the currency, then walk back downstairs to give the exchanged money. Plus, from a security standpoint, it meant the box office doors didn't have to be opened and large amounts of money didn't have to repeatedly be walked through the lobby with guests around.
C1 Expresso in Christchurch NZ uses one to deliver small meals and chips to your table. I think it was pictured in a short bit towards the end. It’s in an old post office and repurposed the tube system. It’s able to be upkept as the local hospital has a new pneumatic tube system for the lab and blood.
A really neat video, well presented. Still in use in hospitals in New Zealand, a great way to quickly deliver samples or paperwork between multi-storey buildings and requiring low maintenence costs. Nice to see a different technology highlight on this channel as opposed to the usual computer-centric content. Great job.
I've actually seen them in the last decade at some grocery stores as a method by which cashiers will send batches of cash to the office rather than wait for a supervisor or manager to come by and pick it up by hand. Sometimes it's faster and easier that way.
When I was studying, I did work experience at the local hospital, and they have three separate tube mail systems, all in use. Really interesting stuff, I even got to help service one of them.
Parents have that pneumatic air elevator, it's loud but it was needed due to space constraints. It's pretty fun to use but there's a definite weight limit that thankfully it won't try to work if it's overloaded.
The main issue with larger pneumatic rail is the same issues you have with rail- NIMBYs, uneven and varying terrain, track maintenance, and hard corners. You can't just draw a straight line and every bend requires more overall pressurized force to keep it moving. The tiny tubes in your bank or building apply more than enough force than is needed to move a small object, whereas the amount of force needed to move a car or a cabload of people is way higher. And the getting in and out of the tube will take forever, unless you want your blood and eyes to boil. And any $$$ estimate some tech bro spouts about the cost of the setup is based in BS, as costs can vary so much and the obscene costs of rail projects are them being realistic and open ended towards things like "Oh, for 300 km of the route we were gonna put the rail is right on top of gravel sediment over a cave system that will erode and potentially sinkhole from all the weight we're putting on top of it."- all of which apply to large pneumatic tubes, which would weight more than two lines of steel rails on top of wood. I'd recommend watching "Well there's your Problem" podcast which covers the Pneumatic Rail (and I even saw it as a precursor to Hyperloop) and they recently did a episode on Hyperloop itself breaking down why the tech fails in both concept, mechanics, and engineering to the point a Bus line would be cheaper and move more people even if the hyperloop was transporting 5 people at a time at supersonic speeds.
I remember cashiers using the tubes at the Home Depot I worked at, instead of walking cash to the back room, it was SOOO much faster just to have the front manager zip it to the back room given it was basically a 5min walk from the main registers to the back room.
saw some in a hospital once, let nurses send samples to the lab. apparently always a surprise when you opened the capsules since there was a fairly high chance the thin glass walls of the blood collection tubes were prone to shattering mid transit so you always ran the risk of a dangerous bloody mess. they didn't use them.
Costco used to have these systems for depositing cash out of the drawer. If a cashier showed as having too much cash in their drawer, they would pull the cash, count it and put it with a count slip in a canister and shoot it off to an office somewhere.
Coles Supermarkets in Australia still use this system for their staffed checkouts. These are not just legacy installations. They're installed in new built supermarkets as well.
I never knew that massive networks of these things to deliver parcels existed until recently. Also, the hospital I work for has a network inside the building that is used a lot for sending samples and small medications around the hospitals.
i work as an IT in a hospital. we use such a system to transport bags of probes (blood etc) from stations to the lab and back. quite fascinating to see something like this in person.
In the early 2000s my local Costco had a system set up for sending messages to employees, i always found it fascinating to watch at a kid when it would go off, but it was hardly used by that point. I used to go to Costco probably once a week, and i think i only ever saw it go off like 5 times total.
Some larger stores here in Finland use pneumatic systems to safely transport cash between the offices and cash registers. I think it's a legitimate safety benefit for the workers to not have to keep excess cash accumulated through the day in the register or carry it in the middle of a busy hypermarket in person.
Good production quality! I loved all the old photos. :) I've been curious about pneumatic tubes ever since I was a kid, but this is the first really concise and clear explanation I've heard of their advantages disadvantages and uses.
I'm an IT technician in a hospital here in Italy. The pneumatic tubes are much more interesting than our entire network. And sometimes even more reliable. 😅
There's also the garbage eating goat in Spokane (and I'm sure several other places) that uses a tube as a fancy trash can. I also remember when Costco had a massive tube system running everywhere, namely from the vault to the casiers.
I work as an optician and we still have one of those for connection of our store and the workshop upstairs. My chef once said we need to take care of it, as the company that build it is no longer there and we might not be able to replace it, if it ever breaks.
In industrial environments, these pneumatic conveying systems are used for all sorts of things. Often you don't even need a case. Systems like this can bulk transport coffee beans, plastic pellets, sand, grains, seeds, and so on. And there's always need to transport such things from one container to another, or to a top-loading train car.
I recently came across a pneumatic tube system in a relatively new convenience store (Centra in Killinarden, Tallaght for any Irish people watching!). If you order some takeaway food, it's put in the tube and sent back to the checkout. It's a high crime area so I presume it's being done as a security measure.
Montréal's Glenn hospital built after 2010 was fitted with such a system exactlt to carry samples to labs. Apparently ahs fancy routing based on some code on teach tube so it gets sent to the right lab. My local supermarket has such a system to send cash collected from cash registers to the office upstairs. where it goes into a safe.
Actually, we already did and still do. The underground railway systems is called the "tube" not without a reason, except we realized shoving trains straight down the line is quite a good idea
I work at a hospital, we use these a lot. User error is a common thing. I remember how a few times the canister got messy cuz someone didn't seal a sample properly inside
I remember seeing them at some supermarkets here in Europe when I was younger. For fast transfers of large amounts of cash from the registers without leaving seats on busy days I guess.
My Sainsbury's Supermarket has them since our shop has 2 floors (floor 2 is staff only) They've sadly been put out of use and replaced with tellermate boxes.
I imagine a good use case for pneumatic tubes would be in security at an airport. It would be a great service to be able to check in items you are not allowed to have in the cabin like pocket knives, nail clipeprs toothpaste and other items banned. Send it via pneumatic tubes to lugage and have it shipped as checked luggage.
Some pharmacies here (Finland) deliver the products from their storage to the desk with pneumatic tubes. They are not relics or legacy by any means for this purpose (as you can't digitize drugs).
Used these at my high school summer job about 35 years ago. Traveling in them would be fine, right up until the end when you slammed to a sudden stop and likely died. To borrow from Jeremy Clarkson, it's not speed that kills, it's the sudden stopping that does it!
I work for a company, that builds pneumaric tube systems for sample transport to fully automated labs in the mining, metal, concret or recycling industry
A lot of supermarkets had them here in Germany where things like cash and receipts could be sent to and from the register without someone having to run around the often huge supermarket.
I worked in a hospital that was built in the 1900s and slowly expanded. They had, on some wings, a pneumatic tube system to deliver lab samples (blood, tissue, whatever, usually blood). Actually, the ironic part is that the tubes ran to the pediatric wing, which was built in about 2003 or so. Before that, it was a parking lot that was partially covered by the floors above it. So those tubes were definitely put in place in 2003. The OLD system for lab delivery is a dumbwaiter, actually, and that was probably put in when the original hospital was built at the turn of the century. I had to run one such blood sample from pediatrics to the lab myself, however. We had this infant (couldn't be more than a year old) who we kept pricking their foot and sending the blood up. Twice we did this and twice the lab called down stating it had clotted too much. So, on the third run, which I was in there observing, the nurse passed it to me and told me to take it up by hand and keep gently rolling it.
First time I saw the system was in Amsterdam. It was bieng used to transfer gems from one desk to another throughout the building. Was 12 or 13 and really amazed ❤
Very common here in Grece in large supermarkets... It's a safe way for cashiers to send money to a secure office so they don't keep too much at their station.
My old job had that system to transport Invoices and other paperwork across Warehouses Offices and different Buildings alltogether. It was always a Highlight to me when i got to send away a so called "Bomb". But always scary when one arrives due to the still highspeed of the Bomb
A streamlined vehicle traveling through stationary air has its own surface area exposed to the wind of its passage. A blunt vehicle traveling through a tube feels no wind, but the entire length of tube from end to end must have the full wind flowing over the huge internal surface area of the tube. This causes immense friction losses and makes flow-driven tubes impractical.
I remember going and visiting my mom while she was working at the local hospital. You could put the tube in and punch in the destination, so when she was on break we would send mail to ourselves. 😊
We used to have one of these that put experiments into our nuclear reactor. The same reactor still has functioning message tubes for the different locations--even if the reactor doesn't work anymore.
We used to have these at the supermarket I worked at in high school for sending excess cash from the register to the counting room. This was less than 20 years ago.
Today they are usually used (at least in canada) to send cash away from registers, so if the place get robbed the will only get a few hours of cash which isn't much in Canada. They can be seen publicly in "Reno Depot" for example.
haha "whoops, bankrupt" xDD ohhhhhhh, boy. omg the salmon cannon! i remember that day. it was a good day. I remember seeing these tubes at every supermarket checkout in the UK. Almost never saw them used. I wonder if some still remain. ...Put me in the picture with "these men are all dead".
The reason pneumatic tubes actually counts as a "secure storage" is because you can have parts of the system pressurized/vacuumized at all times, and then have it connected to a pressure monitor. The system can by the pressure monitors know the "integrity" of the system at all times, and raise a alarm and shut down the system if any tampering occurs, and require a service technician to reset the system with his code. This in contrast to a mechanical conveyor system, where a culprit could intercept a delivery of pot or similiar and thus doesn't fulfill the requirement of "secure storage" unless all rooms where transport occurs, are alarmed and guarded. The good thing with pressure monitors, is also that the pump system can vary the pressure randomly, effectively "sending a code", and then verify the same "pressure code" is received at the other end. If someone tampers with the piping and for example tries connecting a external pump or vacuum cleaner or something to the system in a attempt to cheat the pressure monitoring system and being able to intercept things, then the "pressure code" will not match what the other end sends, thus the system can know tampering has happened. The fact is that these pressure monitors can be so sensitive that if a pipe section has been serviced and replaced, then the pressure monitor system has to be recalibrated for it to not trip, just because the volume of the pipe has slightly changed due to the servicing, which is "visible" to the pressure monitors. In addition, its also possible to identify capsules with for example RFID, and have RFID coils at different locations in the pipe, timing the exact time it takes for a capsule to reach certain points. If this differs too much from the expected time, a tamper alarm could be raised too. This is why pipe transport can be classified to the same security standards as the secure storage locations itself. Think like a supervisored alarm cable (with end of line resistors) - but with physical transport. This is why banks like the system. However, the problem with, what you said, shoving bed frames and foreign objects into the pipes, can be largely solved in two ways: Either make the public points receive-only in single-use capsules or make the pipe system completely sealed, meaning the capsules are not taken out, instead a door is opened on the capsule and the objects put into. If you want to make such a system very safe against foreign objects, you could have that the door on the capsule is spring loaded and open inwards. Then you put your thing into the capsule. When you are done, the capsule is lifted by a solenoid, from a pressure releasing valve, then the section where the capsule is, is simply pressurized. This causes the inside of the capsule to pressurize, effectively locking the door on the capsule, while this can be monitored by a RFID pressure sensor, verifying the door is securely locked and there is no leaks. Then its sent to the destination, where the capsule now hits the pressure-releasing valve, which will now release the pressure inside the capsule, which then allows the capsule door to be opened. This would completely eliminate foreign objects in the piping system. This doesn't however solve the problem with human transport, but it can be solved in a similiar way with interlocked doors on the pipe and the "capsule" inside (but without the pressure lock, a pressure lock is just needed for a small capsule where you don't have space for complicated locking mechanisms), preventing any capsule release unless both doors are securely locked. Still the problem with debris between the outer and inner door, which isn't a big deal in a object transport system, as it won't hurt its performance as much, so a human transport would need some kind of vacuum cleaner that starts when both doors have closed and locked, which cleans the area between the doors, before capsule is released.
I remember the checkout girls at my local supermarket cashing up in the middle of the day, rolling a chunk of money and putting it in a dispatch cylinder, then popping it into a phenumatic transport
When I was a child in the early 90s I remember all the grocery stores had these for sending wads of cash back from the checkout to a secure room somewhere else
I will say a new bank, well a replacement at a new site that is a brand new building, add into the drivethru 1 of these for the 2nd drivethru spot at the bank. So some new ones still come around.
When I was a kid, the bank tellers would put candy in the canister along with the bank docs/money for parents who brought their kids to the bank. Shout out to those tellers for a great childhood memory.
When I pulled into the drive-in bank, my Collie knew there was a pneumatic dog biscuit headed her way! 🐾😎✌️
good way of selling drugs as a teller
I miss the Costco tubes :(
You just unlocked an old memory buried in the back of my head. I specifically remember getting red lollipops
We always got smarties. Just the good times that we'll never get back
I know this isn't the normal LTT jam. But I love a fun tech adjacent informational video.
Too many modern people erroneously believe that technology only includes electronics. Pneumatic systems are tech. The hammer is tech. Domesticating and putting animals to work is tech. And it's all equally amazing and never quite as simply as most would think.
@@barrydingle3830 "Is mayonnaise tech?"
@@CyanRooperit's a recipe
YES! I hope they do much more of this, especially since it gives them far more things to talk about and much more chances to make new videos!
How is this "tech adjacent"? Old tech is still tech!
I actually had the opportunity to fully design & fabricate a pneumatic tube capsule to deliver and distribute medical supplies, pharmaceuticals and even lab tests that would shoot from any zone in the hospital in under 60 seconds for one of the newest and most high tech hospital in my country.
It was quite stressful working with million digit system, a blockage would have caused SERIOUSLY major issues, I was very nervous for that first test but am happy to say I nailed the dimensions on only the 2nd iteration and it made its maiden voyage across the hospital flying goods distributed by an automated robotic pharmacist.
That memory will live with me forever, from CAD to Fab, I poured a metric butt tonne of elbow grease on it.
Bonus fact: The first video with the red capsule is called a “Swiss Log”
I did an internship and my bachelor thesis at swisslog. Was a nice time and interesting tech. All the automation for the medical distribution is insane. Never thought it existed before
So if it's used to send a stool sample from a Zurich native to the hospital lab, you've got a Swiss log in a Swiss log.
Finally, the TechLinked episode we've all been waiting for
*gamelinked
Short circuit *
Carlinked*
Here here
Real
We have pneumatic post at our hospital. Incredibly useful for transporting paperwork, samples, small tools or items. Saves a ton of walking and clothes changing.
Same. It's pretty standard in my large hospitals in the States.
Just make sure fecal samples are clearly marked so they don't become someone's dessert!
We use it to transport radioactive material between buildings under the street.
now you just need to stop using paper
Some Walmart Pharmacies do use pneumatic tubes for their drive thru pickup. That's because the pharmacy is at one end and the place for the drive thru is at the other. This actually protects pharmacy employees from potential harm in the process of dispensing medication.
still used in many hospitals connecting the pharmacy (usually in the basement) with the various floors/nursing stations
@@neospriss That was mentioned in the video.
Walgreens has these systems as well in most cases. However they have very rigid guidelines on what can go in them as the sudden stop at the end of the ride can break glass/plastic bottles with liquid in them and some other sensitive medications. I tended to see most of the locations shut down the vacuum tube lane and just use a drawer so they do not have to ask a customer to get in the back of the line because their medication can not go in that lane.
Hospitals have a ridiculously hi tech version. Blood samples, in tubes with barcodes, are loaded in and sent from the front of house, to the lab. At the lab, it will be automatically be dispensed, sorted from the barcode, and loaded into the testing machine. Incredibly fast and sterile.
@@ActualKirgenthey still have one in full operation at my local Walgreens since there are two lanes, with the one away from the window having one and the one close to it just using a drawer
My supermarket still uses it and I don't see a safer way to gather and centralise all the cash better in a huge safe. Plus it looks pretty cool.
When cash was still accepted at Costco, they had a pneumatic system to move cash from the cashiers.
@@Obscurai You can still use cash at Costco, but yes they did have the pneumatic systems. I remember having to wait one time cause the Costco register told the cashier it needed to put x amount of money in the tube.
@@stevenrburgoyne Yep, with the diminished use of cash, there was less a security problem and thus the tubes were phased out.
saw this in a hospital triage distribution ward, the unseen parts are extensive and are used for transport of medical samples and items
There's a pneumatic fish cannon? That's very silly but very awesome.
And if you want a blast in the past, John Oliver in Last Week Tonight discussed about it in one of the older episodes (I think it was in 2015), and then fired his own salmon cannon in the studio with....4th wall breaking results. 🤣
@@darkchibi07 It's been a bit, but wasn't that where he covered the possibility of using something similar to launch them up and over the top of dams?
you can find some funny videos of it if you search "salmon cannon" :)
I am still surprised that it doesn't harm the firsh
I want to know why I've never heard of one before - where do I get one? Will a cat fit in it?
These systems are still used in some large supermarkets nearby to allow the workers on the register to send and receive notes to/from the cash room when their tills are over a certain capacity or they're short on some for change, without having people walking back/forth through the store carrying large amounts of cash.
Still use these everyday at work! And yes it’s mostly for labs, meds and blood products. Thanks for this!
Imagine the look on the salmons face,
as it arrives by the till at the Cannabis shop.
imagine tripping balls when that happens
“Oh, man this River has sure gone to pot”.🐟🏞️
O3O
getting stuck in one of those would be a claustrophobic persons nightmare
Well, they wouldn't have to worry about claustrophobia after 2 minutes.
@@vexnity460vaccum canned human 💀
As someone that suffers from claustrophobia, let me tell you that I'm not setting foot in one to begin with!
Soooo... just like any enclosed water slide?
Anyone’s…
As a kid I loved watching the Pneumatic tubes working in my local Tesco supermarket, the cashier would send whatever through it and it would be whisked away, strange how we didn’t really notice all the tubes and stations at each till disappearing, I guess smart devices and WiFi etc kinda took over in a far more efficient way
As an RN, tube systems have been part of my workplace from the start. They are just ideal for that application. Anecdotally, they seem pretty reliable too. I can count on one hand the number of times the tube system broke down at hospitals I've worked at, and regular maintenance isn't done all that often.
Also...they result in a hilarious scene in the movie Tommy Boy.
Banks aren’t looking to replace them anytime soon. They’re still installed at newly installed sites, although more and more often the person you’re talking to is in a central location and the local branch tellers are following directions for physical objects from them, rather than talking to the customer directly.
funny enough i remember this from tom scott's pneumatic tubes video to deliver hotdog in a restaurant New Zealand
He also did one near where LTT is, shooting slightly radioactive material under Vancouver streets as part of UBC.
This video has footage from both of them
6:25 the UBC pneumatic tubes
7:06 the hot dog pneumatic tubes
It was not that long ago that many department stores used them before the days of electronic credit approval. If you wanted to purchase something with your store charge account, the sales clerk would send the paperwork to the credit office who would look up your account and either approve or decline the charge. Some stores also used them for cash purchases. The sales slip and your cash would be sent to the credit office. A few minutes later your receipt and your change would come back.
Some banks and pharmacies are still using them for drive up service.
A few (older) supermarkets also still use them to move cash around.
I used to work in a Tesco supermarket and we used pods to send cash from the checkouts to the cash office. You would take the notes out of the till, screw it into a capsule and a pneumatic tube would send it very fast. That way you didn’t have to walk through the store carrying cash, it was all sent through tubes and locked away.
Futurama theme was playing in my head the whole time.
In southern New England, my bank, and many others in the area, are hybrid, with ATMs against the building, and a pneumatic tube in the next lane. I've had the same bank account for over twenty-five years.
There is a bar in Milwaukee WI that uses a pneumatic tube to shake drinks. Sends your drink for a trip around the whole building with a bunch of twists and turns, and since the tube is clear you get to watch.
man, this made me remember the Tom Scott pneumatic tube video, it already feels like it's been too long without his videos
It's also really appreciated in dangerous environments. No electricity, just compressed air. No risk of sparks or whatever =)
We use them all the time in the hospital. Just built a new scifi esq tower and it has a multi tube loader like a revolver.
hospital manager from north Italy here, we use pneumatic tube mail to quickly send samples to the labs that are located on floor -2 also blood bags where needed (usually E.R.)
i remember Costco used to have these to each cashier stations
I previously worked at a movie theater and each box office had 1 of these for doing money order changes when more coins or lower denomination bills were needed. It helped managers from needing to walk downstairs to collect the larger bills, go back upstairs to the safe to exchange the currency, then walk back downstairs to give the exchanged money. Plus, from a security standpoint, it meant the box office doors didn't have to be opened and large amounts of money didn't have to repeatedly be walked through the lobby with guests around.
C1 Expresso in Christchurch NZ uses one to deliver small meals and chips to your table. I think it was pictured in a short bit towards the end. It’s in an old post office and repurposed the tube system. It’s able to be upkept as the local hospital has a new pneumatic tube system for the lab and blood.
A really neat video, well presented. Still in use in hospitals in New Zealand, a great way to quickly deliver samples or paperwork between multi-storey buildings and requiring low maintenence costs. Nice to see a different technology highlight on this channel as opposed to the usual computer-centric content. Great job.
I've actually seen them in the last decade at some grocery stores as a method by which cashiers will send batches of cash to the office rather than wait for a supervisor or manager to come by and pick it up by hand. Sometimes it's faster and easier that way.
Stores still have that in my hometown, as a way for cashiers to safely get checks and money to the back office frequently
When I was studying, I did work experience at the local hospital, and they have three separate tube mail systems, all in use. Really interesting stuff, I even got to help service one of them.
Parents have that pneumatic air elevator, it's loud but it was needed due to space constraints. It's pretty fun to use but there's a definite weight limit that thankfully it won't try to work if it's overloaded.
The main issue with larger pneumatic rail is the same issues you have with rail- NIMBYs, uneven and varying terrain, track maintenance, and hard corners. You can't just draw a straight line and every bend requires more overall pressurized force to keep it moving. The tiny tubes in your bank or building apply more than enough force than is needed to move a small object, whereas the amount of force needed to move a car or a cabload of people is way higher. And the getting in and out of the tube will take forever, unless you want your blood and eyes to boil. And any $$$ estimate some tech bro spouts about the cost of the setup is based in BS, as costs can vary so much and the obscene costs of rail projects are them being realistic and open ended towards things like "Oh, for 300 km of the route we were gonna put the rail is right on top of gravel sediment over a cave system that will erode and potentially sinkhole from all the weight we're putting on top of it."- all of which apply to large pneumatic tubes, which would weight more than two lines of steel rails on top of wood.
I'd recommend watching "Well there's your Problem" podcast which covers the Pneumatic Rail (and I even saw it as a precursor to Hyperloop) and they recently did a episode on Hyperloop itself breaking down why the tech fails in both concept, mechanics, and engineering to the point a Bus line would be cheaper and move more people even if the hyperloop was transporting 5 people at a time at supersonic speeds.
Banks and Home Depot / Lowe's still use them in the garden dept to send things back and forth inside the buildings
I remember cashiers using the tubes at the Home Depot I worked at, instead of walking cash to the back room, it was SOOO much faster just to have the front manager zip it to the back room given it was basically a 5min walk from the main registers to the back room.
saw some in a hospital once, let nurses send samples to the lab. apparently always a surprise when you opened the capsules since there was a fairly high chance the thin glass walls of the blood collection tubes were prone to shattering mid transit so you always ran the risk of a dangerous bloody mess. they didn't use them.
Costco used to have these systems for depositing cash out of the drawer. If a cashier showed as having too much cash in their drawer, they would pull the cash, count it and put it with a count slip in a canister and shoot it off to an office somewhere.
Coles Supermarkets in Australia still use this system for their staffed checkouts. These are not just legacy installations. They're installed in new built supermarkets as well.
This is the best tech quickie you've done in a long time, maybe ever
What an absolute delight
I never knew that massive networks of these things to deliver parcels existed until recently.
Also, the hospital I work for has a network inside the building that is used a lot for sending samples and small medications around the hospitals.
i work as an IT in a hospital. we use such a system to transport bags of probes (blood etc) from stations to the lab and back. quite fascinating to see something like this in person.
In the early 2000s my local Costco had a system set up for sending messages to employees, i always found it fascinating to watch at a kid when it would go off, but it was hardly used by that point. I used to go to Costco probably once a week, and i think i only ever saw it go off like 5 times total.
Some larger stores here in Finland use pneumatic systems to safely transport cash between the offices and cash registers. I think it's a legitimate safety benefit for the workers to not have to keep excess cash accumulated through the day in the register or carry it in the middle of a busy hypermarket in person.
Good production quality! I loved all the old photos. :) I've been curious about pneumatic tubes ever since I was a kid, but this is the first really concise and clear explanation I've heard of their advantages disadvantages and uses.
I'm an IT technician in a hospital here in Italy. The pneumatic tubes are much more interesting than our entire network. And sometimes even more reliable. 😅
There's also the garbage eating goat in Spokane (and I'm sure several other places) that uses a tube as a fancy trash can. I also remember when Costco had a massive tube system running everywhere, namely from the vault to the casiers.
I work as an optician and we still have one of those for connection of our store and the workshop upstairs. My chef once said we need to take care of it, as the company that build it is no longer there and we might not be able to replace it, if it ever breaks.
Tom Green had a video on this on his channel. He sent a camera through it recording the trip.
In industrial environments, these pneumatic conveying systems are used for all sorts of things. Often you don't even need a case. Systems like this can bulk transport coffee beans, plastic pellets, sand, grains, seeds, and so on. And there's always need to transport such things from one container to another, or to a top-loading train car.
I recently came across a pneumatic tube system in a relatively new convenience store (Centra in Killinarden, Tallaght for any Irish people watching!). If you order some takeaway food, it's put in the tube and sent back to the checkout. It's a high crime area so I presume it's being done as a security measure.
Montréal's Glenn hospital built after 2010 was fitted with such a system exactlt to carry samples to labs. Apparently ahs fancy routing based on some code on teach tube so it gets sent to the right lab.
My local supermarket has such a system to send cash collected from cash registers to the office upstairs. where it goes into a safe.
Actually, we already did and still do. The underground railway systems is called the "tube" not without a reason, except we realized shoving trains straight down the line is quite a good idea
I work at a hospital, we use these a lot. User error is a common thing. I remember how a few times the canister got messy cuz someone didn't seal a sample properly inside
They are still used in some UK supermarkets. The are used to move cash from the tills to the cash office.
Oohhh series on obscure infrastructure tech?? love this!
I remember seeing them at some supermarkets here in Europe when I was younger. For fast transfers of large amounts of cash from the registers without leaving seats on busy days I guess.
My Sainsbury's Supermarket has them since our shop has 2 floors (floor 2 is staff only) They've sadly been put out of use and replaced with tellermate boxes.
I imagine a good use case for pneumatic tubes would be in security at an airport. It would be a great service to be able to check in items you are not allowed to have in the cabin like pocket knives, nail clipeprs toothpaste and other items banned. Send it via pneumatic tubes to lugage and have it shipped as checked luggage.
Some pharmacies here (Finland) deliver the products from their storage to the desk with pneumatic tubes. They are not relics or legacy by any means for this purpose (as you can't digitize drugs).
Used these at my high school summer job about 35 years ago. Traveling in them would be fine, right up until the end when you slammed to a sudden stop and likely died. To borrow from Jeremy Clarkson, it's not speed that kills, it's the sudden stopping that does it!
It's both the speed and the sudden stop. Have you heard of anyone dying by walking into somebody else? No.
@@pootispiker2866 There is a whole lot more suddenness going on when you go instantly from 70-0 than when you go from 3-0.
@@IanHobday Therefore, speed kills
@@pootispiker2866 Speed is fine. Drive 70 all day long. It's the sudden stopping that's the problem.
Build this in your house so your wife can send you a beer from the kitchen to the living room TV…
Linus???
I work for a company, that builds pneumaric tube systems for sample transport to fully automated labs in the mining, metal, concret or recycling industry
A lot of supermarkets had them here in Germany where things like cash and receipts could be sent to and from the register without someone having to run around the often huge supermarket.
We have a few of these tubes that take newly formed cups to the inline feed of printers on their respective lines.
My local home depot (built in 2012) is still using these same tubes to send money from cash registers to bookkeeping
I worked in a hospital that was built in the 1900s and slowly expanded. They had, on some wings, a pneumatic tube system to deliver lab samples (blood, tissue, whatever, usually blood). Actually, the ironic part is that the tubes ran to the pediatric wing, which was built in about 2003 or so. Before that, it was a parking lot that was partially covered by the floors above it. So those tubes were definitely put in place in 2003. The OLD system for lab delivery is a dumbwaiter, actually, and that was probably put in when the original hospital was built at the turn of the century. I had to run one such blood sample from pediatrics to the lab myself, however. We had this infant (couldn't be more than a year old) who we kept pricking their foot and sending the blood up. Twice we did this and twice the lab called down stating it had clotted too much. So, on the third run, which I was in there observing, the nurse passed it to me and told me to take it up by hand and keep gently rolling it.
First time I saw the system was in Amsterdam. It was bieng used to transfer gems from one desk to another throughout the building. Was 12 or 13 and really amazed ❤
Need more of this moderator!!!!!!
And awesome info!
Very common here in Grece in large supermarkets... It's a safe way for cashiers to send money to a secure office so they don't keep too much at their station.
My old job had that system to transport Invoices and other paperwork across Warehouses Offices and different Buildings alltogether. It was always a Highlight to me when i got to send away a so called "Bomb". But always scary when one arrives due to the still highspeed of the Bomb
A streamlined vehicle traveling through stationary air has its own surface area exposed to the wind of its passage. A blunt vehicle traveling through a tube feels no wind, but the entire length of tube from end to end must have the full wind flowing over the huge internal surface area of the tube. This causes immense friction losses and makes flow-driven tubes impractical.
Surprising how such an antiquated technology has been repurposed to fill niche needs in modern times. The salmon cannon is an unexpected application.
I remember going and visiting my mom while she was working at the local hospital. You could put the tube in and punch in the destination, so when she was on break we would send mail to ourselves. 😊
Ive seen them few years ago at a Tesco store, so still used today.
We used to have one of these that put experiments into our nuclear reactor. The same reactor still has functioning message tubes for the different locations--even if the reactor doesn't work anymore.
Every bank drive thru still uses these
We used to have these at the supermarket I worked at in high school for sending excess cash from the register to the counting room. This was less than 20 years ago.
The fish cannon just tickled me big time, love it!
Today they are usually used (at least in canada) to send cash away from registers, so if the place get robbed the will only get a few hours of cash which isn't much in Canada.
They can be seen publicly in "Reno Depot" for example.
A lot of people get them installed in homes now too to transport laundry down to the laundry room as well.
Loved it! Though bring Anthony I miss this dude, he explains amazingly!
I work in aerospace, these ones are amazing for large company grounds and complexes
The hospital near me has one of this systems for transporting medication, blood samples, and things like that.
Hospitals use these a lot to transport blood samples to the labs for testing, particularly emergeny departments
Dude that hat is so awesome. I will def. come back for the next episode.
You go bro!
Very much still used in the UK larger supermarkets. To take money and time sheets to the back office.
Linus's next video: You won't believe what I spent $500,000 on in my parking space.
Some COSTCO stores in Mexico use pneumatic tubes to send cash from the registers to a secure room.
So THAT'S what was going on about that fish canon meme !
For blood sample. In hospitals this is by far the most efficient way currently to shoot a sample to the lab for diagnostics
If this was hour long episode, it would be just perfect! ❤
haha "whoops, bankrupt" xDD ohhhhhhh, boy.
omg the salmon cannon! i remember that day. it was a good day.
I remember seeing these tubes at every supermarket checkout in the UK. Almost never saw them used. I wonder if some still remain.
...Put me in the picture with "these men are all dead".
The reason pneumatic tubes actually counts as a "secure storage" is because you can have parts of the system pressurized/vacuumized at all times, and then have it connected to a pressure monitor. The system can by the pressure monitors know the "integrity" of the system at all times, and raise a alarm and shut down the system if any tampering occurs, and require a service technician to reset the system with his code. This in contrast to a mechanical conveyor system, where a culprit could intercept a delivery of pot or similiar and thus doesn't fulfill the requirement of "secure storage" unless all rooms where transport occurs, are alarmed and guarded.
The good thing with pressure monitors, is also that the pump system can vary the pressure randomly, effectively "sending a code", and then verify the same "pressure code" is received at the other end. If someone tampers with the piping and for example tries connecting a external pump or vacuum cleaner or something to the system in a attempt to cheat the pressure monitoring system and being able to intercept things, then the "pressure code" will not match what the other end sends, thus the system can know tampering has happened.
The fact is that these pressure monitors can be so sensitive that if a pipe section has been serviced and replaced, then the pressure monitor system has to be recalibrated for it to not trip, just because the volume of the pipe has slightly changed due to the servicing, which is "visible" to the pressure monitors.
In addition, its also possible to identify capsules with for example RFID, and have RFID coils at different locations in the pipe, timing the exact time it takes for a capsule to reach certain points. If this differs too much from the expected time, a tamper alarm could be raised too.
This is why pipe transport can be classified to the same security standards as the secure storage locations itself.
Think like a supervisored alarm cable (with end of line resistors) - but with physical transport.
This is why banks like the system.
However, the problem with, what you said, shoving bed frames and foreign objects into the pipes, can be largely solved in two ways:
Either make the public points receive-only in single-use capsules or make the pipe system completely sealed, meaning the capsules are not taken out, instead a door is opened on the capsule and the objects put into.
If you want to make such a system very safe against foreign objects, you could have that the door on the capsule is spring loaded and open inwards.
Then you put your thing into the capsule. When you are done, the capsule is lifted by a solenoid, from a pressure releasing valve, then the section where the capsule is, is simply pressurized. This causes the inside of the capsule to pressurize, effectively locking the door on the capsule, while this can be monitored by a RFID pressure sensor, verifying the door is securely locked and there is no leaks.
Then its sent to the destination, where the capsule now hits the pressure-releasing valve, which will now release the pressure inside the capsule, which then allows the capsule door to be opened.
This would completely eliminate foreign objects in the piping system.
This doesn't however solve the problem with human transport, but it can be solved in a similiar way with interlocked doors on the pipe and the "capsule" inside (but without the pressure lock, a pressure lock is just needed for a small capsule where you don't have space for complicated locking mechanisms), preventing any capsule release unless both doors are securely locked. Still the problem with debris between the outer and inner door, which isn't a big deal in a object transport system, as it won't hurt its performance as much, so a human transport would need some kind of vacuum cleaner that starts when both doors have closed and locked, which cleans the area between the doors, before capsule is released.
I remember the checkout girls at my local supermarket cashing up in the middle of the day, rolling a chunk of money and putting it in a dispatch cylinder, then popping it into a phenumatic transport
Imagine the heist movie where somebody diverts the tube at a major bank or something.
The hospital near my house still use it for samples and medicine transfer.
There are some in the US that are used on pharmaceutical locations like Walgreens, especially if they handle 2 lanes.
We have these systems in our banks used to move items from the drive through into the building
There’s a company that installs them in your house as a modern laundry chute, it’s pretty cool stuff!
I have never thought about traveling in tubes… now I can’t stop… thanks james 😅
When I was a child in the early 90s I remember all the grocery stores had these for sending wads of cash back from the checkout to a secure room somewhere else
I will say a new bank, well a replacement at a new site that is a brand new building, add into the drivethru 1 of these for the 2nd drivethru spot at the bank. So some new ones still come around.