engineer. News and illustrations of the 3- and 4-wheel vehicles produced for the Sultan of Turkey, brought both men to international notice. Electric Boats Immisch & Co also employed Magnus Volk as a manager in the development of their electric launch department - probably the world's first fleet of electric launches for hire, with a chain of electrical charging stations established along the River Thames. The company built its headquarters on the island called Platt's Eyot. After 12 months of experimental work starting in 1888 with a randan skiff, the firm commissioned the construction of hulls which they equipped with electrical apparatus. From 1889 until just before the First World War the boating season and regattas saw the silent electric boats plying their way up and downstream. Electric Tram Like his contemporary and fellow electric launch pioneer, Anthony Reckenzaun, Immisch became interested in the development of electric traction for urban transport. Both men had designed and built electric motors to be fitted to tramcars for the public and light railways for industrial purposes. At the end of 1888 and during 1889 the Electric Traction Company, employing Immisch machinery and expertise, had instigated a trial of accumulator tramcars on the Barking Road section of the North Metropolitan Tramways Company's network. This small mile-long single-line track from Plaistow to Canning Town was chosen to prove the economy and reliability of the electric system. The 52 seat tramcars, 6 in total (4 on the road at any one time), ran daily from June 1889 until August 1892. In 1890, with hopes of a large scale expansion of electric traction on the existing horse-drawn tramways, Immisch's Company, together with the Electric Traction Company chaired by Viscount Bury, sold itself to the General Electric Power and Traction Company Limited. This new company soon foundered however due to its reliance on rechargeable battery traction. Despite the North Metropolitan Tramways Company having obtained a Private Act in 1890 to employ such electric tramcars throughout the network, the ultimate approval remained with the local authorities through whose areas the trams ran. In a time of growing municipal powers, the old contracting leases of the Tramways Act of 1870 were expiring and local authorities in the UK looked to buy out old lines from the tramway companies, to develop services of their own. These obstacles, together with the high costs of maintaining the accumulators on such a small installation