In wire systems, the car has pulley wheels which run along wires fixed between the sending and receiving stations ("propulsions"). There may be a single wire (as in the Rapid Wire system) or a pair of wires (as in Gipe's system). The car may be propelled by gravity, a catapult or multiple-pulley arrangement, or by the separation of the wires at the sending end. As well as carrying cash, there was a variant of the Air-Line system which carried the purchased goods for wrapping in a wire basket.
Mr Quilter, who worked on Lamson systems in the 1950s, recalled "the hazards which could befall the overhead cable [i.e. wire] conveyance systems like those that were in use at Vickers Mount's, and also Leas Store in Humberstone Gate [Leicester]. A snapped wire and the customers had to watch out. It would whiplash back, demolishing merchandise displays or knocking off hats that got in the way." Leicester Daily Mercury, 7 Feb. 1991, p. 6. This is the only reference I have seen to such accidents.
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Carrier of a Lamson Air-Line wire system
Cover of a (U.S.) Lamson brochure, ca. 1917