early 50's cash railways

that is eactly the type I remember in Paisley....fantastic

cool

Yes, frequently used those, although the decreasing use of cheques reduced their use in recent years. Now there is just an ATM at each drive-up kiosk. So much more convenient than having to actually get out of the car and go into a building...! Our local Tesco's was still using its vacuum system maybe 6 or

Elsternwick is nowhere near Wagga, f****it.

Not even the same state.

Cook & Boggis in Witney had either the wire or pneumatic system until it burnt down in the 60's

I do, there were two main sorts, the wire ones that you describe and the vacuum tube ones. The idea was to get money and documents in and out of different areas. They even had intersections and the points to reroute them. Most of it was electromechanical, but when they went wrong they were a swine to fix. I seem to recall there was on in Arding and Hobbs not far from Clapham Junction, and as a kid I loved to watched these things whiz about. I never quite understood why all the little containers did not end up in the accounts department though, Maybe they automatically retraced their routes. Must have been a nightmare of microswitches and some form of memory system. Brian

who cares

I remember Arding and Hobbs' "automatic bargain basement". Why is it called Clapham Junction when it isn't in Clapham? I think it's in Battersea. Near Wandsworth.

I remember the Nelson Restaurant with a mural of the Death of Nelson. (I don't know who the original artist would have been.)

Brian Gaff snipped-for-privacy@gmail.com wrote

Yep.

Not with the smaller stores, those just had a single cashier.

Yep, fascinating for kids like me.

The system in our biggest 'emporium'. massive great pair of 8 story buildings right in the middle of the CBD of Melbourne, with an elevated walkway between the two massive great adjacent buildings, had the containers that went in the vacuum tubes with a thing where you specified where it was to go to on the container itself. Twist the end cap. Entirely mechanical. Fascinated me as a primary school kid.

I don't go back as far as the early 50s, but I recall seeing one somewhere, probably in the early 60s, and possibly somewhere in Sussex. Worthing or somewhere like that.

(I have a vague feeling it was the most interesting thing on a day my grandmother took me shopping!)

Andy

As I noted earlier, they had one in the basement of the big Co-Op in London Road in Brighhton (my mum had been a cashier there).

Vokins (haberdasher in North Street/The Lanes) also had them.

Also Featherstones in Sittingbourne.

Also Colliholes at Titchfield

Oh yes - mainly in ladies' and gents' outfitters IIRC. Called 'cash carriers'. Wiki article here

I am a bit older. I recall seeing sales persons take a cylinder open the side, stuff cash or dockets into it, close and seal it somehow, press a button and the thing shot off through a tube under steam pressure.

They still have high pressure steam running under the streets in NYC. They occasionally go wrong and a drain cover will shoot into the air ... leathally.

Come to think of it, I'm not helping am I?

Sorry.

Alan

Are you sure it wasn't compressed air? Steam would be rather dangerous as the cylinders would be rather hot.

and the heat a pointless waste of fuel. We know what he meant.

IIRC, the versions in the '70s onward were vacuum tubes.