The Erie Canal and The New York Central Railroad

The Erie Canal was completed in 1825 a full forty years before the Civil War would end and the postbellum economy began. The Canal allowed for shipping to increase, and it was in direct competition with the New York Central Railroad. The New York Central Railroad Company was established in 1853 and it combined the many different railroads in the State of New York and would later flourish between 1867 and 1954 with the Vanderbilt family at the head of the company. The Erie Canal and the New York Central Railroad company became two titans of industry that flourished in the wake of the Civil Wars end.

The comparison is between the two industrial titans of the Erie Canal that served to cross New York and connected it to Lake Erie and the New York Central Railroad, which during the postbellum years would cross not only New York, but the surrounding states and even into Canada territory. David Maldwyn Ellis looks at the rivalry between these two industry titans from 1855 up to 1898 in his article Rivalry Between the New York Central and the Erie Canal. In this article he compares how many tons were shipped in the Erie Canal vs. how many tons were shipped by the railroad and what was changing in the postbellum economy. The percentage being shipped by the canals was much higher in 1855, and was on par with the railroad by 1865 and by 1898 a mere five percent of shipping was being completed by the canals.[1]

The canal had been constructed in order to increase the amount of goods being shipped and to decrease the amount of time it would take to be carted by animals and stagecoach. A stagecoach would take six to eight weeks and the Erie Canals completion cut this down to days.[2] By 1905, the Erie Canal would undergo an expansion project into the Erie Barge Canal, all because the expansion was needed to increase shipping and to accommodate the new barges that were much larger than the old canal locks. This was also, in large part, because of how well the canal had been performing in recent years. 

The New York Central Railroad Company also grew in the postbellum period. During the time that Cornelius Vanderbilt was in charge the company added multiple rail lines in states such as Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Michigan. Eventually this would grow to include lines across parts of Canada as well.[3]

The goods that were being shipped on both the Erie Canal and the New York Central Railroad were things like corn, salt, grain, lumber and manufactured goods such as clothing, nails and more. The records that were kept for the Erie Canal suggest that the average cost of annual operation was around $411,480 by the 1860s and that the Canal was transporting, on average $193,358-$700,250 worth of goods annually.[4] The New York Central Railroad was paying around $500,000 for the maintenance of the railroad in the 1860s and began shipping more tonnage via their locomotives that same decade and the trend would increase in the years to come.[5]

By 1898 the Erie Canal was shipping 3,360,063 tons of goods a year and the New York Central Railroad was shipping 63,781,083 tons. This meant that the Erie Canal was now shipping a mere five percent of the goods being shipping by that year.[6] Despite this, this was still enough that the Erie Canal decided to expand their canal system into the Erie Barge Canal system which was completed in 1918 and saw a boom in the Erie Canals shipping once again.

The transportation of grain was paramount to both the Erie Canal and the New York Central Railroad. It was due to this that grain elevators became important and there were many constructed along the rail lines and the canal, both in New York and across the Midwest as the railroad grew.[7] Grain elevators could offload a shipment of grain by train or barge in a matter of seven minutes, when it had previously taken long shore men seven days to do the same. Grain became the railroad and canals biggest commodity by the 1880s and it was from the there that the grain was taken across the country by rail or down the Mississippi by way of the Erie Canal, Lake Erie and additional canals and rivers thereafter.

The New York Central Railroad and the Erie Canal represented two sectors of the shipping industry in Postbellum America and saw the combined total of more than one hundred and seventy-five million tons of goods shipped.[8] The rivalry between these two sectors of the shipping industry proved to be an economic boom for both industries and business owners and consumers across the United States.

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[1] Ellis, David Maldwyn. "Rivalry Between the New York Central and the Erie Canal." New York History 29, no. 3. (1948) 268-300.

[2] Vitaliano, Donald F. "Public Enterprise Efficiency: The Case of the New York Canal." Review of Industrial Organization 46, no. 2. (2015). 169-182.

[3] American Rails. New York Central Railroad (NYC): "The Great Steel Fleet". 2007. https://www.american-rails.com/york.html#Commodore (accessed July 7, 2021).

[4] Vitaliano, Donald F. "Public Enterprise Efficiency: The Case of the New York Canal." Review of Industrial Organization 46, no. 2. (2015). 169-182.

[5] Ellis, David Maldwyn. "Rivalry Between the New York Central and the Erie Canal." New York History 29, no. 3. (1948) 268-300.

[6] Ibid.

[7] Clampitt, Cynthia. "Cities, Transportation, and Booming Business." In Midwest Maize: How Corn Shaped the U.S. Heartland, by Cynthia Clampitt, 35-48. Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 2015.

[8] Ellis, David Maldwyn. "Rivalry Between the New York Central and the Erie Canal." New York History 29, no. 3. (1948) 268-300.

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Bibliography

American Rails. New York Central Railroad (NYC): "The Great Steel Fleet". 2007. https://www.american-rails.com/york.html#Commodore (accessed July 7, 2021).

Clampitt, Cynthia. "Cities, Transportation, and Booming Business." In Midwest Maize: How Corn Shaped the U.S. Heartland, by Cynthia Clampitt, 35-48. Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 2015.

Ellis, David Maldwyn. "Rivalry Between the New York Central and the Erie Canal." New York History 29, no. 3. (1948) 268-300.

Vitaliano, Donald F. "Public Enterprise Efficiency: The Case of the New York Canal." Review of Industrial Organization 46, no. 2. (2015). 169-182.