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The One Minute Geographer: The Amazing Importance of the Erie Canal, Part 7
We’re getting close to wrapping up our discussion of important aspects of the Erie Canal — how it helped shape US geography and history.
14) The Erie Canal is enjoying its retirement. We’ve noted before that the Erie Canal is still operating but it’s used now almost entirely for recreational boating and cruises. How did this happen? Railroads, and then trucking on Interstate highways, and finally the St. Lawrence Seaway completed in 1959, put the canal first out of the passenger business and then out of the freight business.
How railroads replaced canals is a fascinating story and I’ll give some examples, not all directly related to the Erie Canal, to show what happened to canals across the country. I’ll also talk a bit about the evolution of railroad technology which I hope you find as fascinating as I do. I was tempted to give a subtitle to this section called “Hi! I’m from the railroad and I’m here to help.”
Initially railroads were established as ‘high-speed’ components of canal routes. The first railroad in New York state was the Mohawk Hudson railway connecting Albany and Schenectady, by-passing the locks around the Cohoes Falls. It was completed in 1831 — just six years after the entire length of the Erie Canal was opened.
