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Cash carriers were used in shops and department stores to carry customers' payments from the sales assistant to the cashier and to carry the change and receipt back again. The benefits of a "centralised" cash system were that it could be more closely supervised by management, there was less opportunity for pilfering (as change would be counted both by the cashier and by the sales assistant), and it freed up the assistant to attend to the customer and perhaps make further or better sales. [1]
The earliest type was a two-piece hollow wooden ball which ran along sloping rails, carrying cash and sales docket or receipt. [2] One set of rails sloped down from sales desk to cash office and another set sloped in the opposite direction. This was known as a cash railway. William Stickney Lamson of Lowell, Massachusetts patented this system in 1881. His invention soon attracted the interest of other shopkeepers, and in 1882 along with Meldon Stephen Giles, the Lamson Cash Carrier Company was incorporated in Boston. A working example can be seen in the Co-operative store at Beamish Museum in North East England, and one is still in its original location in the Up-To-Date Store, now a museum, at Coolamon, New South Wales.
The next type was a carriage suspended on pulleys from a wire between sales desk, launched from a catapult. The best-known types were "Rapid Wire" and "Air-Line."
This system was developed by Joseph Martin of Vermont. [6] In cable systems there was a continuously moving cable around the shop passing the counters and the cashier, driven by an electric motor. When a payment was to be sent, the sales assistant put it in a carrier and clipped it to the cable. The carrier was guided by light metal tracks. It was detached at the cashier's station, the transaction was dealt with, and the change and receipt were returned along the cable again. [7] Twenty or more stations could easily be operated with a 1 horse-power motor. Lamsons offered two main types of system: the "Perfection" and the high-level "Preferred" where there was a "drop point" at the sales counter. The first shop to use the Lamson cable system was the Boston Store in Brockton (owned by James Edgar), which was founded in 1890. [8] Although quite common in the United States, there were few installations in the United Kingdom. The best late survivor was at Joyners General Store in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, but the building burned down on New Year's Day, 2004. [9]
Several of the above companies also made pneumatic tube systems - see Lamson tube. They are still installed in a few shops. Modern pneumatic tube systems are also now used in supermarkets for moving cash in bulk from tills to the central cash office. An 1898 account of a pneumatic tube system installed in Kirkcaldie & Stains department store in Wellington, New Zealand, states:
In the basement is a half horse-power Crossley Bros. gas engine, which works a rotary blower, and this in turn supplies the compressed air required for the whole of the system. Distributed throughout the premises are 19 "stations" situated behind the various counters, these stations consisting simply of a valve in the pneumatic tubes which are carried to all parts of the building. On the second floor, in the vicinity of the tea room, these pneumatic tubes are centralised, and present very much the appearance of the front of a pipe organ — in fact, the room already goes by the name of the "organ loft". Each "pipe" of the "organ" terminates in a valve, and in what may be called the "keyboard" of the "organ" are placed a number of small wells, used for the reception of all kinds of coins, from a halfpenny up to a sovereign. Here sits the lady cashier, who occupies a very important and responsible position. A customer, we will say, in the dress department makes a purchase, and hands the saleswoman a sovereign in payment of a bill for 15s 6d. The bill and the sovereign are placed in a small round box, known as a "poppet"; the saleswoman opens the valve of the station behind her counter, places in it the poppet (which is made to fit the tube), shuts the valve again, and, hey presto! the poppet and its contents are sent up the tube to the "organ loft" and almost into the hands of the cashier. That official quickly opens the poppet, puts in it the bill and the necessary change, opens the valve and places it inside, closes the valve, and away goes the poppet on its return journey, the whole transaction occupying but very few seconds. Each station and the poppets in use at it will be numbered, so that there is no possibility of the cashier sending a poppet to the wrong station, and the whole system promises to work with a degree of smoothness and swiftness which cannot fail to give the most complete satisfaction. [10]
A cash register, sometimes called a till or automated money handling system, is a mechanical or electronic device for registering and calculating transactions at a point of sale. It is usually attached to a drawer for storing cash and other valuables. A modern cash register is usually attached to a printer that can print out receipts for record-keeping purposes.
Pneumatic tubes are systems that propel cylindrical containers through networks of tubes by compressed air or by partial vacuum. They are used for transporting solid objects, as opposed to conventional pipelines which transport fluids. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, pneumatic tube networks gained acceptance in offices that needed to transport small, urgent packages, such as mail, other paperwork, or money, over relatively short distances, within a building or, at most, within a city. Some installations became quite complex, but have mostly been superseded. However, they have been further developed in the 21st century in places such as hospitals, to send blood samples and the like to clinical laboratories for analysis.
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A railway air brake is a railway brake power braking system with compressed air as the operating medium. Modern trains rely upon a fail-safe air brake system that is based upon a design patented by George Westinghouse on April 13, 1869. The Westinghouse Air Brake Company was subsequently organized to manufacture and sell Westinghouse's invention. In various forms, it has been nearly universally adopted.
Pneumatics is a branch of engineering that makes use of gas or pressurized air.
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In electrical signalling an analog current loop is used where a device must be monitored or controlled remotely over a pair of conductors. Only one current level can be present at any time.
The Beach Pneumatic Transit was the first attempt to build an underground public transit system in New York City. It was developed by Alfred Ely Beach in 1869 as a demonstration subway line running on pneumatic power. The line had one stop in the basement of the Rogers Peet Building, near the old City Hall station, and a one-car shuttle running between the building and a dead end approximately 300 feet (91 m) away. It was not a regular mode of transportation and lasted from 1870 until 1873.
A paintball marker, also known as a paintball gun, paint gun, or simply marker, is an air gun used in the shooting sport of paintball, and the main piece of paintball equipment. Paintball markers use compressed gas, such as carbon dioxide (CO2) or compressed air (HPA), to propel dye-filled gel capsules called paintballs through the barrel and quickly strike a target. The term "marker" is derived from its original use as a tool for forestry personnel to mark trees and ranchers to mark wandering cattle.
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The electro-pneumatic action is a control system by the mean of air pressure for pipe organs, whereby air pressure, controlled by an electric current and operated by the keys of an organ console, opens and closes valves within wind chests, allowing the pipes to speak. This system also allows the console to be physically detached from the organ itself. The only connection was via an electrical cable from the console to the relay, with some early organ consoles utilizing a separate wind supply to operate combination pistons.
A bank teller is an employee of a bank whose responsibilities include the handling of customer cash and negotiable instruments. In some places, this employee is known as a cashier or customer representative. Tellers also deal with routine customer service at a branch.
The New York Air Brake Corporation, located in Watertown, New York, is a manufacturer of air brake and train control systems for the railroad industry worldwide.
The electro-pneumatic brake system on British mainline railway trains was introduced in 1950 and remains the primary braking system for multiple units in service today, although London Transport underground trains had been fitted with EP brakes since the 1920s. The Southern Region of British Railways operated a self-contained fleet of electric multiple units for suburban and middle-distance passenger trains. From 1950, an expansion of the fleet was undertaken and the new build adopted a braking system that was novel in the UK, the electro-pneumatic brake in which compressed air brake operation was controlled electrically by the driver. This was a considerable and successful technical advance, enabling a quicker and more sensitive response to the driver's operation of brake controls.
R. H. Stearns & Company, or Stearns, as it was commonly called, was an upper-middle market department store based in Boston, Massachusetts, founded by R. H. Stearns in 1847.
Kirkcaldie & Stains was a department store in Wellington, New Zealand. It was established in 1863 by John Kirkcaldie and Robert Stains with a capital of £700. The first store was opened on Lambton Quay. In 1868 Kirkcaldie & Stains moved to their final location at the corner of Lambton Quay and Brandon Street, expanding several times. There was a branch on Cuba Street, Wellington from 1870 –1876 and one in Napier from 1897 until 1917. French luxury skincare brand Sisley was exclusive to the store in New Zealand.
"Tubular-pneumatic action" refers to an apparatus used in many pipe organs built during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The term "tubular" refers to the extensive use of lead tubing to connect the organ's console to the valves that control the delivery of "wind" to the organ's pipes. Many such organs are extant 100 or more years after their construction.
Lamson Engineering Company Ltd was the name between 1937 and 1976 of the British offshoot of the Lamson Cash Carrier Company of Boston Massachusetts. The Lamson companies were the best-known manufacturers of cash carrier systems for shops including cash ball, wire and pneumatic tube systems and of pneumatic tube systems for other applications.
Jacksons was an English department store chain. It was founded by Edward Jackson in September 1875. Its flagship branch was located in central Reading, Berkshire, occupying a prominent site, Jacksons Corner, on Kings Road, just south of Market Place. Deep underneath the building runs a culvert of The Holy Brook waterway. Jacksons expanded and at its peak operated from seven locations. It closed its remaining original store in Reading in December 2013. Throughout its history, the company was owned by its founding family.
Lack Brothers was a department store based in Thornton Heath in Croydon, England.