ABSTRACT
A hydrogen-powered engine would solve the problems, Mr. W. Cecil averred: "The engine in which hydrogen gas is employed to produce moving force was intended to unite two principal advantages of water and steam so as to be capable of acting in any place without the delay and labour of preparation." According to Cecil's explanations, the general principle was that hydrogen, when mixed with air and ignited, will produce a large partial vacuum. Cecil's proposal was made only 20 years after another Fundamental discovery, electrolysis—the breaking down of water into hydrogen and oxygen by passing an electrical through it. Hydrogen also figured in a juvenile adventure novel published, apparently, shortly after the turn of the century in England. The 1920s and 1930s witnessed a flowering of interest, especially in Germany and England, in hydrogen as fuel, a historical phenomenon that has been largely forgotten. The German railway system test-operated a hydrogen-powered self-propelled rail car in suburban operations out of Dresden.
