Frontispiece The Vienna Pneumatic Post

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Historic and Philatelic aspects

The Plumbing Matters

Lengthy appendices

• Outline of the Vienna Pneumatic Post. This 5-page PDF provides an overview of the system but none of the details; its illustrations are at its end.

Historic and Philatelic aspects

• Introduction: "What IS Pneumatic Post?"; Overview of this book; How to use this book; Acknowledgements; References and further reading.
• Historical background
• Telegrams and the Telegraph System
• 1st March 1875: a pneumatic postal system starts in Vienna
• Pneumatic Office numbering
• The Service develops
  • Introduction of the service
  • The Collecting Office hypothesis
  • A Postbüchel reference
  • 1896: looking back, looking forward
  • 1901: list of Offices and description of the service
  • "Annual Report for 1924" (Rohrpost section)
• List of pneumatic offices
• Postal Markings & Cancellations of the Pneumatic Post
  • List of cancellation types
  • Type I - Oval cancel with office number (KKPS)
  • Type II - Oval cancel with office name
  • Type III - Single-circle sanserif cancel
  • Type IV - Date-time cancel with ornaments
  • Type V - Date-time cancel with "WIEN"
  • Type VI - Date-time with Post-Office number
  • Type VII - Ring cancel
  • Type VIII - Bridge cancel
  • Don't cross that Bridge...
  • Type IX - T.A. Bridge cancel
  • Type X - Miscellaneous
  • List in Office Number order
• Other markings including brown labels, red labels, Depeschen-Aufgabsamt-Cancellations etc
• Triple cancellations
• Pneumatic Post Stationery: overview
  • The history and development
  • Items overprinted "SPECIMEN"
  • The Ascher listings
  • Validity dates
  • Private Printings
  • Detailed listings
    • Official Envelopes (& the sheet)
    • Official Letter Cards
    • Official Postcards
• Rates and operations
  • Period 1: 1875 to 30.9.1916
    • Rates and Operations
    • Express delivery
    • Table of Rates
    • Receipts for pneumatic items
    • Censorship during WWI
    • Examples
  • Period 2: 1.10.1916 to 3.4.1938
    • Rates and Operations
    • Effects of the war
    • Changes to regulations
    • Table of Rates
    • Registered Post
    • Examples
  • Period 3: 4.4.1938 to 1945
    • Rates and Operations
    • With the Anschlüß came changes!
    • Registered Post
    • Examples
  • Period 4: 1945 onwards
    • Rates and Operations
    • At the end of the war
    • Censorship after the war
    • Austrian mail to & from Germany and Japan.
    • Air mail in the 1945-1956 period
    • Postal Rates
    • Registered Post
    • Examples
    • Green post-WWII censor cancels
• Decline and fall
  • The last train
  • Was the end really the end?
• Delivery matters
  • Delivery from the office of posting
  • Additional franking for local delivery
  • How long did deliveries take?
• Pneumatic Railway-Station Correspondence
  • The Vogel-Fukarek List of BAHNHOF numbers
  • A Postbüchel reference
• Pneumatic Air Mail Correspondence
• Messengers and delivery fees; "Botenlohn"
  • What is Botenlohn?
  • Botenlohn in the postal service
  • Botenlohn in the telegraph service
  • The 1875 instruction manual
  • Botenlohn in operation in the pneumatic post
  • Mail to Meidling
  • 1899 & 1901 lists of Offices and description of the service
• Items with postage dues
• Special Offices:
  • The Effekten-, Frucht-, Mehl-, & Produkten- börse
    • Summary and Chronology
    • The pipes
    • EffektenBörse
    • Frucht-, Mehl-, Produkten-börse
    • Searching the archives
  • Wien 11 & Wien 13
  • Wien 25
  • Wien 53
  • Wien 71 & Wien 73
  • Wien 74 & Wien 75
  • Wien 105 & Wien 107
• Unusual covers
• Free-post correspondence
• Censoring
  • WWI censor cancels
  • Green post-WWII censor cancels

The Plumbing Matters

• Details of technology
  • Plumbing matters
  • The piping
  • The containers (Büchsen)
  • The employees Operations Manual
  • Passing-through ("Durchfahrt") mail
  • Operational troubles
• The containers: design and construction

Lengthy appendices

Several of these are (or link to) rather large PDF files, because they are made available [on the invaluable "ALEX - the Laws of Austria" site] as page images of Fraktur, not as text. The sections-98 of some Postordnungs have been extracted for convenience. You may need to give your browser explicit permission to display them. Each will open in a separate window (or tab); when you're done with it close that window.

• Maps & diagrams
• The enlargement of Vienna from 1850
• Prospectus for the Pneumatic Despatch Company Ltd, 1859
• "K. k. Telegraphen Central Station, Wien 1874" written by Georg Ehlich, an official of the k. k. Telegraphenamt
• The founding Ordinance for Vienna's Pneumatic Post (1875)
• The 1875 Instructions for Telegraph Messengers
• Introduction of Pneumatic Correspondence Cards (1879)
• Introduction of reply-paid Pneumatic Correspondence Cards and Regulations for the Pneumatic traffic in Vienna (1880)
• 1883RGB179 Post Office take-over of Telegraphs
• Express Delivery of pneumatic correspondence outside the pneumatic area in the Viennese Postal Area (in 1887)
• New canceller styles, and renumbering of Vienna's Post Offices, in 1892
• Post- usw Dienst im Lokalpost-Rayon von Wien: Feb 1892
• 1895RGB076 Nationalisation of Vienna Private Telegraph Co
• The "Zeitschrift Für Post Und Telegraphie" dated 20 January 1900.
• The "Instradirungs-Behelf" - the Street Index of Vienna (1901)
• The 1899 description of the pneumatic system's facilities
• The 1901 description of the pneumatic system's facilities
• "Pneumatic stationery" from Kropf (1902)
• 1906RGB251 New inland Posttaxordnung
• Telegraph Festschrift, 1907 (part only)
• 1911RGB127 Handling of underfranked Rohrpost
• "Rohrpost Installations" by Schwaighofer (the Austrian part), 1916
• 1916RGB317 The 1916 issue of the fundamental Postal Decree, coming into effect on 1 October; it is 82 pages long!
• 1916RGB317-98 Section 98 of the 1916 Decree, which deals with Rohrpost
• 1919SGB496 P&T split into separate Posts and Telegraphs
• 1922BGB406 The 64-page 1922 Postordnung ...
• 1922BGB406-98 and its Rohrpost section
• Annual Report for 1924 (Rohrpost section) by the Generaldirektion für Post- Telegraphen- und Fernsprechwesen
• 1925BGB228 Letters to railway stations; registration
• 1925PTVOB050 Changes to Rohrpost rates; introduction of registration
• 1926BGB329 The 64-page 1926 Postordnung ...
• 1926BGB329-98 and its Rohrpost section
• 1929BGB404 Express and Pneumatic handling merged
• The 1932 Dienstanweisung part 1
• The 1932 Dienstanweisung part 2
• Geschichte der Wiener Rohrpost by Dr Hajek (1933)
• Telegraph Stamps by Müller, from "Die Postmarke", 1935
• Currencies 1938-1945
  • The demise of the Schilling in 1938
  • Allied Military Currency
  • The resurrection of the Schilling in 1945
• Post-WWII Timetabling and an anomaly
• Press release "100 years" (1975)
• Technical Description" by Turner, 1978 (part only)
• Pages from the magazine "Post Schrift" (1980s)
• A visit to Vienna's Technical Museum



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