The 1901 "Instradirungs-Behelf" - the Pneumatic Post's Street Index of Vienna

The 1901 "Instradirungs-Behelf" is an elusive document, referred to in the Dienstanweisung (Pneumatic Post Operations Manual). Indeed, the title is also elusive, being a fine example of Postal Austrian; later editions are called Leitbehelf. This document is the vital link between the address as written on the envelope or card, and the destination number of the pneumatic station from which it would be delivered.

The contents are: index of pneumatic offices (showing the services available at each); index of telegraph offices (ditto); street index with for each the code for the pneumatic office delivering to it and the code for the sometimes-different telegraph office delivering to it. We show some pages from the 1901 edition; captions are under the images.

In these lists, a few entries in the third column – the pneumatic post 'office-to-send-to' number – are in unusual formats such as 69(D.) or 105/107. We have been unable to discover what 69(D.) means. However the double-numbering is explained in the 1940 edition: "If an address has two entries under the Rohrpost column, the second is for use during the period after 18:00 and all day Sundays when the first office is closed".

Three more similar documents have been found in the Post Office archives, for 1933, 1940, and 1953. The cover and a page of each are shown in the section on "Wien 105 and 107".