Breathing new life into the pneumatic dream

[Nipuna]

ONCE upon a time, there was an unconventional US entrepreneur who devised a revolutionary mode of transport that would send people hurtling through narrow tubes at high speeds.

Not Elon Musk, who this week unveiled a system designed to put Los Angeles within 30 minutes' reach of San Francisco (see "Hyperloop: Musk unveils high-speed pneumatic transport"), but Alfred Beach, whose Pneumatic Transit briefly carried people under New York in 1870.

Several "atmospheric railways" also operated in the UK around that time, including one built by Isambard Kingdom Brunel. And many shared Beach's dream of a pneumatic age, in which everything from mail to meals whizzed around cities.

But the dream rapidly faded as the technology proved expensive and fiddly – though it still has its uses today (see "Newmatics: antique tubular messaging returns").

Musk's Hyperloop is far more sophisticated. But whether it will prove any more viable remains to be seen. Mass-transit systems need government support, and high-speed rail is contentious in the US. On the other hand, a flamboyant scheme might be just what's needed to spur interest. Perhaps Beach's dream will belatedly come true after all.