Imagine indeed. An enterprising person might start a courier business; )
"Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of tapes hurtling down a highway."
At the time was faster and cheaper to copy large amounts of data to mag tapes and drive them between New York and Washington, DC. This was still true when you factored in the salary of the Data Center workers, driver, tapes, tolls, and meals.
The breakeven point in terms of cost/speed from New York was about Richmond/ Cleveland.