There’s a pneumatic tube system used in my novel-in-progress that is absolutely crying out for further development in the second draft, so a piece like this is well useful.
Stanford Hospital’s four miles of pneumatic pipes are used to deliver documents and samples, with 124 stations and 29 blowers:
In four miles of tubing laced behind walls from basement to rooftop, the pneumatic tube system shuttles foot-long containers carrying everything from blood to medication. In a hospital the size of Stanford, where a quarter-mile’s distance might separate a tissue specimen from its destination lab, making good time means better medicine…
Its architecture is a sophisticated design of switching points, waiting areas, sending and receiving points. It hosts 124 stations (every nursing unit has its own); 141 transfer units, 99 inter-zone connectors and 29 blowers. To help alert employees to the arrival of containers, the system has more than three dozen different combinations of chiming tones…
Depending on the diameter of a tube, cylinders can reach speeds of up to 25 feet per second, about 18 miles per hour, far faster than any human could ever manage.
I remember when all the department stores had a similar set up, so people in upstairs offices would take your money and make change. The clerks downstairs had no money, so they couldn’t dip into the till or be robbed.
Hence the phrase, “It’s coming down the pipe.”