Mohawk and Hudson Railroad

The Mohawk and Hudson Railroad was the first railroad built in New York State and one of the earliest in the United States. It linked the Mohawk River at Schenectady with the Hudson River at Albany so that Erie Canal passengers could skip the winding route around Cohoes Falls, cutting the trip from a day to under an hour. The company was announced in 1825, chartered in April 1826 and opened its 16 mile line on 24 September 1831, with the locomotive DeWitt Clinton, built at the West Point Foundry, pulling three cars in forty-seven minutes. Its early track used strap rail on stone blocks and inclined planes with fixed steam engines at each end. It was renamed the Albany and Schenectady Railroad in 1847 and was consolidated with nine other lines to form the first New York Central Railroad in 1853.