Paris pneumatic post
The Paris pneumatic post was a message-carrying service that operated in the French capital from 1866. It was established because of the popularity of the electric telegraph in the city which had led to the signal cables becoming overloaded. The network was taken into public ownership in 1879, under the Ministry of Posts and Telegraphs, and opened to messages sent by the general public.
About Paris pneumatic post in brief
The Paris pneumatic post was a message-carrying service that operated in the French capital from 1866. It was established because of the popularity of the electric telegraph in the city which had led to the signal cables becoming overloaded and messages being sent by road. The network was taken into public ownership in 1879, under the Ministry of Posts and Telegraphs, and opened to messages sent by the general public. Messages continued to be considered officially as telegrams and for a fixed cost users could write a message on a \”petit bleu\” form. The number of messages sent peaked in 1945 at 30 million. Budget restrictions from 1945 hampered the network as maintenance and upgrades were cut. With declining usage the network was closed in 1984. A parallel system operated for official purposes and connected several government buildings. Part of this network, connecting the senate, national assembly and officers of the Journal Officiel de la République Française, survived in use until 2004. The use of electrical telegraphy in Paris rose rapidly in the period of the Second French Empire, from 17 stations in 1851 to 2,200 in 1867.
The messages were carried in containers within a steel tube of 65 millimetres diameter, buried 1 metre below ground. A reservoir at either end of the line allowed for messages to be sent in both directions. It took 12 minutes to complete a full clockwise circuit of the network. In addition to the length of the message transmission, the cost of the user was not affected by the addition of the 1,060-metre long tube to the post office. In the following decades additional polygonal circuits were added to the original hexagon, doubling it in size by 1872 – though the circuits remained within the area within the Wall of Wall of the Ferérale. On the 5 February 1879 the Ministry. of Posts & Telegraphs was formed bringing the two services, previously under the. Ministry of Finance and Ministry of Post, together together. The Ministry opened the network to the public from the use of the public in May that year. The first line was installed between the offices of the Central Télégraphique in Rue Feydeau and Le Grand Hotel in Boulevard des Capucines.
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This page is based on the article Paris pneumatic post published in Wikipedia (as of Jan. 11, 2021) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
