"The means by which passengers will be landed en route is also in doubt. Some suggest that they will simply be dropped overboard and their luggage thrown after them, while others maintain that a coil of greased rope for the purposes of descent will be carried on each and every machine."
Truly the Hyperloop of its day.
http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=9904E7D815...
A vacuum ship that actually has a vacuum pump aboard would have the great advantage that it can easily change it's buoyancy using, say, electrical power. It could use this to change height, or compensate for being loaded with materials.
Vacuum ships would actually be a solution to the zeppelin problem.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buoyancy_compensator_(aviation)
If you had a powerful enough pump to create a reasonable vacuum it's far more powerful than the pump you need to compress helium if you need to lose buoyancy.