All this talk about pulling cables in pipes, reminds me when I was an apprentice in the railway workshops in Derby.
It was the time I was working on the new railway carriages helping to pull the cables in the conduits, we would use an air line to blow a piece of string down the longer lengths of conduit that went the full length of the coach (on the shorter conduit runs we would use a steel draw tape) Then pull a steel draw cable in, attach the cables, Then winch them in while someone fed them in, we could only use 'French chalk' to help them go in.