THE CASH RAILWAY WEBSITE |
||||||
| Home | Cash Balls | Wire systems | Pneumatic systems | Locations | References | Patents |
"It was not uncommon for her to receive the despatch back with a spider or a lizard inside. She was therefore always on her guard." (Devonport Times Jan. 2002)
The manager, Mr Hood, said to Lamsons' Queensland manager on a visit in 1976 that he had a complaint to make. "The wire broke on our system... but that was 25 years ago." Someone had used non-tensile wire. (Lamson Solutions 1898-1998)
"When the customer came to Bainbridge, he handed over his ticket to the first department in which he wanted to make a purchase. The ticket was then sent via a pneumatic cash tube to the Counting House, where an 'A.S.V.' or Agent's Shopping Voucher was issued to the customer." The 'ticket man' or agent was a trade customer with Bainbridge who owned or ran his own shop, usually in a small town or village. His customer would come to him when they specially wanted an item from Bainbridge. (Chronicle/ Bainbridge & Co. Ltd. vol. 37, no. 38, 22 Oct. 1988)
A pneumatic tube under the High Street connected the Borough Treasurer's and the electricity showroom so that bills could be paid in the showroom and the money carried to the Treasurer's office. Occasionally a carrier got stuck and drain rods had to be used to extricate it. (C.Collard, Borough Treasurer in This England, Summer 1975)
"I started working for the Birmingham Co-operative Society in July 1944, the first branch was at Olton Boulevard... Those days used to have their funny sides, like a time when the cashier was in her office and the money cups we used to send up for change... We youngsters put a sheep's eye in the cup and sent it up to her. We had a good laugh over that. (Joan Cutler in Childhood Memories, Solihull Online)
"Her first job was at the Bon Marché upmarket shop in Liverpool... She started in the tube room, in the basement, where all the cash canisters came to by pneumatic tubes... Could be hurt if you left your fingers in tube too long. Mostly women down there. Paid 21 shillings a week. 7/6 taken off for your dinner, which you had to eat in the store... They used to be searched for money". (Joyce Kearney in Millennium Memory Bank, National Sound Archive)
"My aunt worked in the cash office at the other end of the pneumatic tubes at the Co-op department store in Bradford. I loved to go and visit her, and slide back and forth on the seat on rails where all the return tubes were located. One had to knock open the valve with the end of the carrier; the vacuum would suck it in and close the valve behind it." (Martin S. posting to alt.fan.goons newsgroup, 22/11/05)
"One day I placed a carrier in the tube without closing it. Oh dear, what a to do. In the end Steel Peach & Tozer had to be called out to retrieve the carrier, and the customers money." (Nigel Womersle in posting to Sheffield Forum, 6/9/06)
"Most of our grocery shopping was done at the local Co-op, one of the largest shops in the High Street. Only Woolworth's .. is remembered as larger. How many remember the central cash office, connected to all departments by a system of overhead wires with catapult operated cash containers? When the pulley wheels became worn or needed oiling the container stopped in mid air. Someone had to resort to using the window hook (that stick with an $ shaped brass hook at the end) to retrieve it. The big department stores in Croydon used vacuum pipes to do the same job, which had to cover 3 or 4 floors, all in one counting house." Steve Oxbrow, Walking on the moon.
"My first job was in the Co-op which used this system. The first time I used it, the customer paid her thirty shillings bill all in sixpenny pieces and I must have failed to secure the pot properly for, halfway to the cash desk it came apart, showering everyone with coins. We never did find all the money. But the best story of all was when a young friend placed a dead mouse in the pot and sent it into the cashier's office - to be followed second later by a loud scream." Letter to Daily Mirror, 21 July 1977, p. 20. Basil Le Roy also reported a dead mouse incident in a letter to the Mirror, 27 December 1968, p.16.
"An airedale dog, owner unknown, has taken up an unpaid post in a store at Gravesend, Kent... It's the soft furnishings department he visits. He's fascinated by the overhead cash carrier... The cash carriers travelling swiftly overhead to-and-from the cashier's desk hold him spellbound."( Letter to Daily Mirror, 30 Apr. 1940, p.14 )
"The main problem with that method [cash ball system] was the danger of the two halves coming apart if not screwed together properly, with the contents falling from a height to the shop floor - hopefully missing the customer's head. Being very young at the time, this was considered hilarious." (Letter to Bath Chronicle, 18 May 2004, p.10)
"My first full time job was working for Grants in their cash office. In those 'olden' days, the store had an intricate (compressed air) piped system of sending money around the store, and to and from the cash office. In the cash office, we'd receive these canisters with Customers' money and a sales invoice inside. We were required to stamp the invoice paid and make up the correct change, put it all back in the canister and return it to whichever department, again via the piped system.
Of course, if we were sending the canister back to a young wench on the shop floor, we would always add a personal 'tribute' from the cash office lads." (Don Donnovani in Crystal Palace Football Club forum)
"Any happy kid could watch these wire-led missiles whizzing above his head like bullets on a string. Approaching Christmas, my memory is that they had little Sooties or other puppets sitting in them." ('Waxy' in posting to Whirligig message board, 20/11/04)
Only occasionally were there mishaps in the tube system. As recently as the mid-1960s one inexperienced temporary salesgirl put sixty-four pound notes straight into the tube and not, as was essential, into the carrier. Within seconds the cashiers in the basement were being showered with sixty-four shredded one pound notes.
"Harwoods, one of the big clothing shops in Strood, had a splendid overhead wire cable-way... This inspired several model imitations which moved objects around my bedroom!" (John Robert Etherington in posting to WW2 People's War: an archive of World War Two memories, 17/6/04)
The department store in Grays, (corner of New Road and High Street)
had one of them. The wires were replaced by I-beam rails to go round
corners. The I-beam had hexagonal holes in /exactly/ the same size as
a "Derwent" pencil.
As a smallish boy (<12) I would wander in there with my mate Graham
and "liberate" a pencil from one of the counters. When no-one was
looking you could reach through the iron banister rails and push a
pencil through the rail. Then retreat. When the little trolley came
thundering along, it would snap the pencil in half and stop dead. The
two halves of the pencil would fall on the floor, and in a well-planned
rush get collected to disguise the cause of the incident.
The customer would get in a huff, the sales staff in a fluster, and a"floorwalker" would head off to find the problem, then try to retrieve the trolley with broomsticks
tied together etc.
Just one incident could entertain a couple of young boys for a whole afternoon. (Robert Har... in posting to uk.rec.sheds newsgroup, 23 Aug. 2007)
[In the 1940s] "There were about five railways which went along to the cash desk - the girl used to put the change in and send it back. Occasionally if things were slack we used to sort of wind up the girls in the office by either putting in false messages or a dead mouse you know, much to the consternation of the shop manager! 'Who did that?' Nobody would own up. " (Lewes remembers, p.59 and interview of Geoffrey Symonds in National Sound Archive)
[In the early 1940s] "in the sub-basement there were rows and rows of girls sitting emptying, filling, giving change , collecting clothing coupons from these machines, we had to service a lot more than one... They were coming down non-stop and at times when the store [was] busy they would be backed up for 5-10 minutes. To go back to the sales desk they were sent first to another girl who had a whole slew of pipes, rather like a church organ, with numbers on them which corresponded to the numbers on the tube." Joan White in posting to soc.genealogy.uk+ireland group, 12 Jan. 1997
"My parents met when they worked there. Dad was a bacon hand, and Mom the cashier. Apparently he used to put messages in the pulley cup that money was sent along a wire to the cashiers box." (Rowley Regis Online)
"The only saving grace of The North London Drapery Store was.. Lamson Tubes! How exciting when mum or another customer bought something. The salesgirl would write out a chitty and put that and the money into the container. Then open a flap-valve and shove the container up. I used to stand gazing with bated breath for the brass tube with grey leather end seals to 'flud-dump' into the basket with the chitty stamped and our change." (Ray Smith in uk.rec.subterranea Newsgroup, 13 Aug. 2002, referring to late 1940s/early 1950s)
"When I was a child in Totnes, I remember the Paignton Co-op Society's
store in Fore Street. It had a haughty lady cashier who used to sit in a glass-fronted
office set up near the roof, from which vantage point she could oversee the
misdeeds of the shop assistants and sneer at the customers... The assistants
wrote out the bill for the purchase and put it with your money into a kind of
tube suspended on a system of wires. They pulled a lever and your money and
the bill would whiz around the shop at an alarming speed. After completing what
seemed to be about half a dozen circuits of the store, it clanked into the grand
lady's eyrie. She undid the lid of the tube and took out the bill and the money.
After putting in the relevant change, she sent it back on the return journey.
I remember praying that our ten shilling notes would be crisp and clean. I dreaded
incurring that lady's displeasure.
"The store had about six serving points so you can imagine
the activity there was on the tube system on a busy day. Little pots of money
rattled and clanked in all directions. I was always hoping to see a crash, but
I never did...
"When the Paignton Co-op Society was taken over by the
CRS, we lost our tube system in Totnes, and, eventually, we lost our co-op store
too." (Roy James, "Thoughts on emporiums" in Herald Express (Torquay),
22/11/83). The writer blames the demise of emporiums on the Americans, who
"never had any emporiums" and whose "history is completely devoid
of haughty lady cashiers and clanking tubes of money"!
"Nemo" describes the carrier in the Gipe system at Pughs. "[I] saw a bloke up a ladder get hit by one once. He was OK though. The ground broke his fall. (Posting to alt.fan.goons newsgroup, 17/3/04)
"I'm sure the Co-op at the corner of Chesterfield Road and Meersbrook Park Road had the brass tube system when I was little. I always thought it was really exciting - once the manager took me into the room upstairs where the cashier sat and let me wait for our money to arrive there! From then on it was my ambition to be her one day. Sitting up there in splendid isolation, bird's eye view of the shopfloor, money and power hehe .. world domination. ("Rubydazzler" in posting to Sheffield Forum, 6/9/06)
"One of my jobs was to start the machine up to operate the [pneumatic tube] system and it was a beast to get up and running. ("Baldy Smith" in posting to South Shields Sanddancers Forum, 24/3/05)
Mr Shaw of Shaws department Stores, Ireland, wrote (31/5/02) that his father and uncles remember the Lamson system well. The sales staff used to have to keep a record of each sale and at various times of the day but particularly the end they would have to agree their totals with the office total.
All sales staff used to have a pencil behind their ears and if the office delayed in sending back change etc. they would tap the wire with their pencils to tell them to hurry up. At times the sales staff would send several sales at once to try and confuse the office staff with the change they would have to return and likewise the office would then send back all the change for these sales at one time and unless the sales staff remembered what to expect they had problems.
The big London stores such as Selfridges, Gamages and C & A at sales times would ask for loans of extra Rapid Wire equipment. This was kept in crates at the back of the store labelled for the different shops. At Christmas, models might be attached to the cars such as Fathers Christmas.
The play "Madame Louise" (see Films, plays etc.) requires a wire system in one act. Lamsons used to lend a set when it was being put on until the 1970s.
"So if you were extra friendly with any of the guys or wanted a bit of fun, we used to sometimes put a little note in them." (Hamilton Public Library Youth Oral History Collection)
"My friend witnessed an amusing incident there the other day. The wifie in front of him had a pomegranate which the checkout operator thought sub-standard. So she called over the intercom for a replacement and apologised for the delay. After a couple of minutes she again requested a replacement. Then with a clunk the capsule arrived. She looked puzzled, opened it, and inside was a replacement pomegranate!" (Dick Goodall)
William Newcomb wrote: "When the store opened for business after the 1913 flood the fabulous cable system that carried tickets and cash between a cashier on the balcony to all departments was not in operation. Being almost 9 years old, I was pressed into service by my father to run tickets and cash to a cashier station. In 1937 [when the Ohio River flooded again], the equally fabulous pneumatic tube system was not operating. Following a family tradition, I brought my son Bill who was seven and his brother Bob, age five, to work. They thoroughly enjoyed working for two days."
The tube system served two five-storey buildings with the cash office on the top floor. Carriers would become suspended in the tubes when their "wafers" at either end became frayed or damaged. That meant breaking into the tubes and using a snake that was up to 100 feet long. "Had many panicky moments when this occurred." (Jeff)
"The money and a sales slip was put into a little wooden trolley cup on rollers that was send [sic] down to the office on a spring steel wire. The accountant in the office would send it back to the respective department. The clerk would count the change and give it back to the customer. If the incorrect change was made, they would rattle the wire and send the cup back down." (Phyllis Genealogy website)
"My dad bought a pair of shoes in a downtown department store. They had those nifty Lamson vacuum tubes that sent your cash back to a hidden cashier who made change and sucked it back to the sales counter. Nobody ever robbed those stores. The shoe salesman got a little too close to the tube when he opened his end. His rug [i.e. toupee] chased my dad's $10 back to accounting." (Canton Rep website)
"A few days ago in a long store the clerk reached up to send a bill to the cashier n a wire cash carrier. As he reached an ugly Skye terrier yelped, jumped up four feet as if to catch the and then started after the carier going on a dead run." Daily Review, 5 Nov. 1893
"When I was about 4, Harold Williams was the manager. One day he picked me up and let me pull that thing and send it on its way. It would be like a kid launching a rocket today. I never had such a thrill." Harold Belyau, 70. (Abeline Reporter-News website)
Jim Kerbull, former owner and operator, on the video made by the Lemelson Center recounts that dogs used to race the car back and forth (though they were not supposed to be in the store). Mr Hughes of T.P.Hughes, Tenby also mentioned dogs chasing and barking at his system - which is more surprising since it was pneumatic tube.
In Frances Donovan's novel "The saleslady", she lives in dread of receiving the carrier back with a red rubber band round it. This indicates a "premium". She had made a mistake which had to be referred to the section manager, and the person who discovered it was awarded 10 cents. I don't know to what extent this was based on reality.
"The pneumatic cash system was always good for a prank, especially in the old store where the office was in an open balcony. A feather from a feather duster could be carefully placed in the carrier so that when opened it would spring out at a startled cashier. The screech sometimes made customers forget what they were shopping for. It was also possible to create the same result by filling the canister with cigarette smoke. Deceased insects and spiders were also known to take the ride." The Weirs Times Mount Washington Special Edition
"Once while I was at Tiffany's, on another floor where a friend of mine was working, Elton John came in with Bernie Taupin. She was so flustered that when they bought their item they came in for, and paid her cash, she took the cash and, instead of putting it in the capsule we had at the time for the pneumatic tube system they used all over the whole department store, which would shoot the capsules back and forth and make change for you and send receipts, she simply opened the door you shoot the capsule down and stuffed the cash in - WITHOUT THE CAPSULE! This f--ed up the whole system for the rest of the day - there were dollar bills stuck all over the pipes." Diaryland website
Rick Inzero
wrote: "Until 1996, when they went bankrupt, they were still using
such a cash carrier. It was an overhead cord-and-pulley system with an endless
loop of cotton cord that traversed a route around the entire store, going to
each check-out area (there were maybe five of them), and then up to a "crows
nest"/office in the upper back corner of the store.
The checker would write up your items, take your cash, fold it up, and put it
inside a small shiny rectangular metal box... The checker would also flip something
on the box, like metal flaps .. that uniquely identified the "address"/location
of the office.
Then the checker would reach up and hook the box onto a line-mounted metal atachment...
This conveyor system had a perpetual distinctive soft clickety-clack sound,
since the cord had little metal hooks or grabbers on it every few feet... There
was a looped black metal wire-frame cage at each sales area... When derailed,
the cashbox would zoom off the cord onto the metal wire frame."
"A big single storey store (opened in the 1880's) I shopped in up till the mid 50's ... had a really wild central cash station where the sale was written up and the money/paper was put into a carrier that hung on a wire placed maybe 6 feet off the ground... What they didn't factor in was that in a few generations folks got taller and more than once my 6'+ bod got a hat knocked off or brushed on the head as these whizzed by." Charley Kehoe in rec.antiques newsgroup, 9 Feb. 1998.
Diana Crook recalled that her dog loved the carrier system. On the first floor there was a hole where you could see into the ground floor. The dog used to wait there and when a car passed it got excited and barked.