3-021-644 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Pneumatic Despatch Tube: the Holborn end of the Tube on the opening day, 1865. Inauguration of a 'conveyance by atmospheric propulsion through a tube', for the delivery of mail-bags 'from and to the postal headquarters in London...[and] between the different railway termini and goods dépôts...connecting with these lines the six principal London markets and other important points...The Duke of Buckingham, Chairman of the Pneumatic Despatch Company, had invited a number of scientific gentlemen to inspect the apparatus. After the train had made some successful passages to and fro, several of the party expressed a strong desire to pass through the tube themselves. They were warned that the line was "not constructed with a view to passenger traffic", and that they might find the way "a little rough". The spirit of adventure, however, prompted them to take this strange journey, and each of the waggons had soon as many occupants as it could comfortably accommodate in the recumbent posture enforced by circumstances..."The sensation at starting, and still more so upon arriving (say some of the passengers), was not agreeable...there was a pressure upon the ears suggestive of a diving-bell experience".' From "Illustrated London News", 1865.