They Ran Trains Without Coal in 1870 — And That's Why The Compressed Air Technology Was Banned

Between eighteen seventy-six and nineteen seventeen, Paris operated entire fleet of trams powered by compressed air—silent, clean, no smoke, no coal, running commercially for forty-one years carrying millions of passengers. Louis Mékarski French-Polish engineer received patent eighteen seventy-six solving cold expansion problem through bouillotte system: compressed air from storage tanks at seventy-five atmospheres passed through heated water reservoir before entering engine cylinders, preventing freezing while maintaining consistent pressure. Compagnie Générale des Omnibus operated compressed air trams achieving thirty kilometers per hour, ten to fifteen kilometers range between compression station refills, passenger capacity comparable to horse-drawn systems with significantly lower operating costs—forty-one years documented commercial success then completely dismantled nineteen seventeen exactly when oil becoming dominant transportation fuel