Vacuum trains: a high-speed pipe dream? (BBC Future)

[madokie]

6. Not much different from the vacuum tubes they use at the bank

or at many manufacturing facilities where they have to get samples to the lab for analysis quickly before they use the product that makes the parts that they are about to make. I know Iron foundries use them for that reason as do some plastic manufacturers.
I've worked on these systems at the foundry where i worked for several years back during the raygun years and there really isn't much to go wrong other than something bending the tube or the vacuum quits working. Other than that they're pretty fail safe and quick as all get outs. At the foundry they'd have samples back at the lab a couple hundred feet away for analysis way faster than they could by any other means, like right fucking now.