"I got root on the Prague Pneumatic Post"

[Kragen Sitaker]

This sounds interesting enough.

Date: Thu, 18 Nov 1999 00:40:04 -0600
Message-Id: <199911180640.AAA18016@www.fringeware.com>
To: Dead Media List <dead-media@fringeware.com>
From: Bruce Sterling <bruces@well.com>
Subject:  Dead Media Eyewitness Report

From: mischief@interport.net (J.C. Herz)

"I Got Root on the Prague Pneumatic Post"

by J. C. Herz

        In Prague, there is a fully functional municipal 
pneumatic tube system == the only one still in operation 
(the one in Paris was shut down long ago). It runs 
underneath the entire city == five trunk lines, 55 
kilometers of tubes, switches, and relays snaking 
underground from the main post office in Old Town, south 
to New Town, which was constructed in the 14th century, 
across the river on the underbellies of three bridges, and 
all the way up to Prague Castle. 

   It takes eight minutes for a pneumatic tube to reach 
the furthest point on the network. An air blower starts at 
the point of origin, and a vacuum starts at the 
destination. On longer lines there is a relay network of 
air pumps which switch from vacuums to blowers once the 
tube passes, sort of like booster stations.

    The first message was sent in 1899. On March 4, 1999, 
the system was 100 years old.

     Originally, it was for wire telegrams.  They came in, 
were rolled up and sent by pneumatic tube to the most 
important buildings in the city. After that, the system 
was used for telexes, which had to be centrally controlled 
so that the communist secret police could inspect 
everything.  The telex room is in the same building: half 
an acre of ceiling-height shelves, like library stacks 
except it's not books, it's wiring, feeding into the same 
Cold War telex machines, still ticking. 

    The 1960's were a big decade for the Prague pneumatic 
post. Big traffic in the '70s, when the government-run 
Czech Press Agency was run out of same building == they 
distributed all approved international information, news, 
and government propaganda to the newspapers, magazines, 
television and radio stations via pneumatic tube. That 
ended in 1989, when the Velvet Revolution entitled news 
providers to get their information wherever they wanted.

     But instead of fading into obsolescence, the Prague 
Post stubbornly reinvented itself as conduit for financial 
documents. Banks. When you need an original document 
within minutes, the pneumatic tube system beats a bike 
messenger.  The system is actually being expanded now, at 
the behest of the financial sector. And the poetry is that 
it's owned and operated by Czech Telecom. They have to 
keep it running because the pneumatic tube lines run 
alongside the gas lines and if they shut down the system 
there might be a hazardous build-up and possibly 
explosions, and it's cheaper to keep it running than to 
dig it all up. 

   The system loses about $70,000 a year, but at that 
price it's a relatively inexpensive early warning system
for gas leaks.

    I found out about the Prague Post from Bruce 
Sterling's Dead Media listserv and made inquiries about 
seeing it.  The Swiss consultancy that was bringing me 
over has connections in the Czech Republic and set up an 
appointment with the Pneumatic Post Supervisor, since the 
system isn't open to the public. And he gave me the whole 
history and the grand tour.

     And the whole time there were these tubby ladies with 
gloves, who've probably been working there since the wire 
days, intercepting and redepositing these pneumatic 
cylinders, which arrive with a big rattle and a horrendous 
thud.  These tubes are moving ten meters per second, and 
they're metal, and when they land they hit hard.

    When he'd finished explaining, one of the red lights 
in this pipe organ of pneumatic tube conduits began to 
blink. And so I asked, "Can I? Can I do it? Can I put one 
of the messages in?" The tubby ladies eyed me suspiciously 
but the supervisor agreed. 

   So, poised over the iron and brass console, I opened 
one of the small, circular hinged doors. And there was an 
enormous whoosh of brownish smoke and a scary noise and so 
I threw the capsule into the hole and quickly closed the 
little door. There was more rattling and banging, and a 
light went on, and I turned to the supervisor and said, "I 
think I just broke your 100-year-old pneumatic tube 
system." But he said no, and got one of the maintenance 
guys to dislodge the capsule with a broomstick, whereupon 
it zoomed off to its intended location. 

    Most of the tubes have automatic air shut-off, he 
explained. This one was manual and I wasn't quick enough. 
One of the tubby ladies nodded smugly. But still, he said, 
"You are the first foreigner to operate the system. You 
should get a certificate."

     Being eight years old inside, I immediately seized on 
this. "Can I? Can you make me a certificate? Do you have 
letterhead? Can you type a certificate for me? It would 
really... I mean, it would really mean a lot." And I 
actually marched the man into his office and made him type 
out this certificate on Czech Telecom letterhead:

        "I hereby certify that Ms. J. C. HERZ
        has been the first foreigner who personally
        PUT a Pneumatic Mail System Cartridge into the
        appropriate aperture of the single and unique
        Prague Pneumatic Mail System."

                Signed, Jiri Hak, Managing Director.


     This piece of paper is now one of my most prized 
possessions. How often can you go into a country and be 
the first foreigner to do something? As far as I'm 
concerned, this is my claim to fame.

JC