Locations - Scotland

ABERDEEN. Isaac Benzie, George Street. Pneumatic tube system. Closed around 1960s. (M.Anderson-Smith). "I loved the .. little cylinders they put your money and receipt in and sent them shooting up to the office in little tracks then back it came with your change." ('RosemountK' in posting to This is North Scotland Bulletin Board, 2 Jul. 2005)

ABERDEEN. Co-op, Co-op Arcade, Loch Street . "Cash whizzed around the ceilings in Lampson [sic] tubes, like rattling steam trains." (Aberdeen Eevening Express, 28 Jun 2000, p.17)
"The one on the right side was Pneumatic and the returning cylinder would be ejected from the brass tube into a square wire basket. And the other system on the left side of the Arcade was in the Co-opey Shoe department. And that one was different - it consisted of your money being whisked away on a cable that stretched up to the cashiers in a separate room up in the top corner in a mezanine... I think it rolled on two wheels suspended from a 'clothes-line' setup... I seem to recall that they pulled down a lever and it shot away up there like an arrow." (Jim Rae in posting to This is North Scotland Bulletin Board, 2 Jul. 2005) The shop was bulldozed in the late 1980s.

ABERDEEN. Falconers, Union Street. Pneumatic tube system. Closed around 1960s. (M.Anderson-Smith)

ABERDEEN. Duncan Fraser, drapers, Schoolhill. Pneumatic tube system. Closed around 1960s. (M.Anderson-Smith). "I remember being fascinated by the pulley system." (Cath Russell posting to Aberdeen-L list, 2 Dec. 03). Duncan Fraser was 152nd Lord Provost of Aberdeen ca. 1949.

ABERDEEN. "Raggie" Morrison, St Nicholas Street. Pneumatic tube system. Closed around 1950s. (M.Anderson-Smith)

ABERDEEN. Northern Cooperative Society, Loch Street. Pneumatic tube system. Closed around 1960s. (M.Anderson-Smith)

ABERDEEN. Reid & Pearson, George Street. Pneumatic tube system. Closed around 1960s. (M.Anderson-Smith)

ABERDEEN. Watt & Grant, 225 Union Street. "Three of these [cash] railways have been fitted up in Edinburgh, two in Dundee, a number in Glasgow, but until just now there has been none so far north as Aberdeen. The firm of Messrs Watt and Grant .. have been the first to introduce the railway to Aberdeen. The special railway consists of two lines of polished wood, the guage being 2 3/4 to 3 1/2 inches broad. Being very light it is suspended from the roof by wires at such a height as to cause no obstruction, and is rather an ornament than otherwise... There are four stations, or five if the cashier's desk is included. Two of them are placed at each counter... The railway is now in full working order, and is well worthy of inspection. Aberdeen Weekly Journal, 21 Nov. 1885

BUCKIE, Banff. McKays. Cash carrier. (Glynis Flood)

CLYDEBANK, Dunbar. Co-op. "They took yer money and put it in some sort of tube and fired it away somewhere then it came back with yer change and stamps." ("The Croc" in posting to Welcome to Clydebank Discussion Forum, 11/4/03)

EDINBURGH. C & A, Princes Street. Pneumatic tube system. (Catherine in posting to Forth 2 Message Board, 30/9/04)

EDINBURGH. "The big Co-op", Gorgie Road. Cash carrier. (Ned in posting to uk.people.silversurfers newsgroup, 10/11/03)

EDINBURGH. Jenners. Pneumatic tube system. Posting to soc.history.what-if newsgroup, 10/12/02.
"Jenner's and Patrick Thomson's and other stores had the common Lamson Paragpn in which cash & chitty went in a cartridge from counter to counting-house and back via vacuum tubes. All this exposed plumbing did nothing for the shop's decor. The noise of cartridges hurtling along and bursting out into receival baskets was part of the department store atmosphere then. Edinburgh History website

EDINBURGH. Leith Provident Co-operative Society, Leith. Wire system. Old Leither website. Pneumatic tube system. (Catherine in posting to Forth 2 Message Board, 30/09/04)

EDINBURGH. Leith Provident Co-operative Society, Granton Road. Cash ball system in 1940s. (Douglas Beath)

EDINBRUGH. Patrick Thomsons, the Bridges. Pneumatic tube system in early 1970s. (Posting to soc.history.what-if newsgroup, 10/12/02). See also Jenners above.

FALKIRK, Stirl. Bishops dept. store. Cash carrier in 1950s. (Pat Egerton)

FALKIRK, Stirl. Co-op, Kirk Wynd (now Clydesdale Bank). Pneumatic tube system. (Posting to soc.history.what-if newsgroup, 10/12/02)

FRASERBURGH, Aberdeenshire. Benzie & Miller, 15-32 Mid Street. Lamson pneumatic tube system installed in 1934. Satiche website.

GLASGOW. Allans (shoes), Gordon Street. Pneumatic tube system. Davie posting to Talking Scot forum, 28/10/05

GLASGOW. Arnotts, Jamaica Street. First cash carrier in Scotland, installed in 1885. Described in great detail by the Glasgow Herald. Shop closed in March 1994 (Glasgow Herald 3 Mar. 1994)

GLASGOW. Colosseum (Walter Wilson). Second cash carrier in Scotland, also installed in 1885. (Moss and Turton)

GLASGOW. Co-op, Bothwellhaugh. Wire system. (Iwitness website)

GLASGOW. Co-op, Govan. "They sent your money upstairs to the cash office in a kind of vacuum thing." Annette M. posting to Talking Scot forum, 28/10/05

GLASGOW. Co-op, Thornliebank. Wire system. (WEA Salt of the Earth website)

GLASGOW. Copland & Lye, dept. store. Tube system. (E. Smith)

GLASGOW. Dallas, 166-170 Cowcaddens Street. "I remember well using the Vacuum Tubes when I worked in a store called Dallas's at the Coocaddens hunners eh years ago. You would put your sales slip and the money inside the tube, turn it so that it closed and then WOOOSSHHHH - up the pipe it went. It was terrible on a Saturday cos you had to wait ages for it to come back down." Annette R. posting to Talking Scot forum, 28/10/05

GLASGOW. Lyons toy shop, Sauchiehall street. "The ground floor, where the tiny overhead railway bearing cash from the counter to the cashier was a diversion in itself." (R. Trollope. Starting from Glasgow. Stroud: Sutton Publishing, 1998, p.46)

GLASGOW. Pettigrew & Stephens dept. store, 181-193 Sauchiehall Street. Opened 1901. Seven floors. Pneumatic tube sysrem. (Moss and Turton)

GLASGOW. Watt Brothers, 119 Sauchiehall Street. Lamson pneumatic tube system "removed during a refit a few years ago". Photo of removed terminals (Andrew Massey).
"I used to work with the vacuum tubes to the 'counting house' as Watt Brothers grandly termed it... and that was only in the 1980's." Wilma M. posting to Talking Scot forum, 28/10/05

GLASGOW. Walter Wilson. "It need hardly be said that every known device for expediting barter is introduced into the business, and the latest of all, the Lamson Cash Railway, can be seen in full." (Wilson, Arthur. Walter Wilson, merchant, justice of the peace and magistrate of the City of Glasgow, 1849-1917, p.34)

HUNTLY, Aberdeenshire. Reid & Gordon. Pneumatic tube system. (M.Anderson-Smith)

INVERNESS. John Young, Union Street. At the opening on 11 April 1935, "Mrs Mackenzie [wife of the Provost] ceremonially despatched the first cash carrier by the pneumatic tube - the first such installation in the Highlands - to the cashier's desk." Inverness Courier, 4 Jan. 2003 - Old Inverness.

KILMARNOCK, Ayrshire. Mason Murphy (furnishers), 79-80 Portland Street. Pneumatic tube system. At least 15 tubes are visible at one point. (Lindsay Lennie)

KINROSS. John & J.H.Sands (hardware), 58 High Street. Perhaps the only surviving example of a cash lift in the UK, in use from about 1920 to 1988 and still in working order. (Stuart Skinner)

KIRKCALDY, Fife. Graftons (ladies' outfitters). "The money went in a tube system and upstairs to the cash office." "Lindalou40" posting to to Daily Mail chat, 11 Aug. 2005

LAURIESTON, Kirkud.. Co-op. Pneumatic tube (?) system in 1950s. "The cashier sat in an elevated glass cubicle." (Pat Egerton)

LOCHGELLY, Fife. Co-op. "Cash transfer pulley system". Lochgelly Memories

PAISLEY, Renf. Co-op (grocers). "We didn't have a machine that catapulted money up to the cash desk [in the dairy], though, it was only in the bigger grocers next door." Nancy posting to Talking Scot forum, 31/10/05

PORT GLASGOW, Renf. Co-op. Rapid Wire system about 1961. (Posting to soc.genealogy.uk+ireland newsgroup, 25 Nov. 1996 )

STIRLING. McAree Bros, 53/59 King Street. A lease was signed in 1934 for a Rapid Wire system at 35 shillings p.a. for each station. In 1937 this was replaced by a new system with chromium-ebony finish. A "Junior" pneumatic tube system was also installed powered by two 3/4 HP motors at £6.16.6 per station rental. In 1955, due to increasing business, Lamsons quoted for the two Junior units to be replaced by a Lamson 1001 X 3 stage turbine. The cost was £197, or a new leasing agreement at 15 guineas for each of the two stations. (Mrs Young)

indicates systems which are still there (as far as I know) though they may not be working.