A look at Parliament House's Document Movement System

They are sooo behind the times! The Cameron Offices in Belconnen built mid 70’s (at least 10 years before Parliament House), which was previously inhabited by ABS and ComSuper, and now partially destroyed, had one of these mail delivery systems which was decomissioned just before ABS moved out in ~2001. The little boxes used to break down occaisionally, mostly when climbing the vertical sections of track (fun for the repair guys). Also the lids would sometimes pop open dumping all the contents enroute to their destination.

joy18 said :

Waiting For Godot said :

PS – There is a rumour going around that the ABC has axed the Canberra news on ABC1 and will now be showing the Sydney bulletin every night. Last night the Sydney newsreader welcomed Canberra viewers at the start of the show. Does anybody know if this is true?

The rumour is wrong.
If you watch the ABC High Definition channel (ABC HD), you will get the Sydney news. To watch Virginia and Mark, watch the ordinary ABC1 standard definition channel.

That doesn’t explain why the Sydney newsreader welcomed Canberra viewers.

Probably just technical issues in Canberra last night. A few weeks ago there were technical problems in Sydney and the Canberra news ended up going into NSW and ABCHD, with Virginia welcoming those viewers.

Waiting For Godot said :

PS – There is a rumour going around that the ABC has axed the Canberra news on ABC1 and will now be showing the Sydney bulletin every night. Last night the Sydney newsreader welcomed Canberra viewers at the start of the show. Does anybody know if this is true?

The rumour is wrong.
If you watch the ABC High Definition channel (ABC HD), you will get the Sydney news. To watch Virginia and Mark, watch the ordinary ABC1 standard definition channel.

It’s still used fairly often. Working in the basement, you frequently hear the boxes trundling by overhead (as well as the occasional grinding sound as one becomes stuck and tries futiley to free itself)

The point-of-view footage is actually our footage. For an in-house doco, we had one of the boxes modified so that a camera could be placed inside. We dubbed it “rat-cam” 🙂

27 stations!!! You lazy bastards

What a waste of money that was.

And as for 4 skyscrapers laid flat, would that be Canberra skyscrapers??

The best part of the system is the bit that sends documents through the tunnels to the underground bunker beneath the lake.

…and that the tubes go though radiation to kill any viruses before they can be opened.

Ah, yes Dimensions – or rather Dementia as it was known within the ABC. Part of Howard appointee Jonathon Shier’s attempt to dumb down the ABC so we all felt “relaxed and comfortable”. This also involved axing Media Watch and telling the producers of Four Corners and Foreign Correspondent to avoid anything that was “too controversial”. Luckily much of this was reversed after Shier’s departure a year or so later.
PS – There is a rumour going around that the ABC has axed the Canberra news on ABC1 and will now be showing the Sydney bulletin every night. Last night the Sydney newsreader welcomed Canberra viewers at the start of the show. Does anybody know if this is true?

The best part of the system is the bit that sends documents through the tunnels to the underground bunker beneath the lake.

That is gorgeous! It is only 10 years ago and yet would look at home on the deck with Captn Kirk. But how do you know it’s obsolete? Surely some, many even, still send letters.