POSTAL DEVICES

Greymouth Evening Star, 30 May 1928, Page 9

POSTAL DEVICES

I ■ II II I lI—DELIVERY BY UNDERGROUND The General Post Office has made a wonderful addition to its distribution facilities in London (writes the correspondent of the “Argus”). A tube, six and a-half miles long, extending from Paddington in the West to Whitechapel in the east, has been cut at-a cost of £1,500,000, and is now being used for the distribution of letters and parcels, in place of horsecarts or motor-vans. In the new postal tube run electric trains, giving a two minutes’ service, the trains being controlled by automatic devices similar to those in a signal station. When a lever is lowered the current -is switched on to the line, and the postal train is set in motion; when the lever is raised the current is switched oft and the postal train comes to rest. A train consists of three cars, each 13ft long, and the system can carry 23,000 bags a day, the track being double and the trains having a speed of 35 miles an hour. Each station is equipped with lifts, spiral chutes, and bag conveyors or elevators. It is uncanny to watch the operations being carried through without human intervention. A button pushed here; a lever pulled there, and the work is done. Another postal improvement recently introduced in Central London is the automatic telephone. London was late in testing the automatic telephone, but the system has come to stay, and it will be extended throughout the metropolis, as existing telephone exchanges renewal. Within 10 or 15 years the renter of an automatic telephone in London will be in touch with 2,000,000 points, scattered over the 700 square miles included in the metropolis telephone system. About 100,000,000 calls pass over the British telephone system in a year, and telephoning has ousted telegraphy in public favour. The telegraphic service is supported by heavy subsidies from paying departments of the general postal system. There are now 1,500.,000 telephones in Britain. This is much below the proportion in the United States where there are 15 telephones to every 100 people.