268 



The M< >li' iir J: and Hudson Rail Road. 



was not until a century later, that iron rails were intro- 

 duced. Indeed, although a rail road was constructed in 

 France, in 1783, the principal use made of rail roads until 

 near the end of the first quarter of the present century, 

 was the transportation of coals in England. They were 

 mostly short roads or train ways among the collieries, and 

 the trains were taken up and down inclined planes, by 

 stationary engines. The era of successful operations for 

 the transportation of passengers upon rail roads by loco- 

 motives propelled by steam power, dawned but half a 

 century ago; and the plateau familiarly known to us as 

 the pine plain, between Albany and Schenectady, was 

 the theatre of a genuine passenger rail road almost as 

 early as any in the world. 



Overlooking the theories and experiments of Oliver 

 Evans in the last century, we rind I hat in 1812, a pamphlet 

 was published for the purpose of explaining the superior 

 advantage of rail ways and steam carriages over canal 

 navigation, particularly on the peculiarly favorable route 

 from Lake Erie to Hudson's liver, which had been the 

 ancient trad of the Indians, and which will undoubtedly ever 

 remain the natural and most feasible land passage between 

 the two waters. Mr. Stevens of New Jersey endeavored 

 to persuade all who were engaged in public improvements, 

 that rail roads were cheaper and more effective, as well as 

 far more rapid in transit, than was possible to be attained 

 by water. Mr. Featherstonhaugh of Schenectady also 

 put in a plea for rail roads. 



But the great enterprise of constructing the canals, in 

 which the energies of the state were at that time involved, 

 overshadowed all ot her schemes. Yet no sooner were they 

 completed, and in successful operation, than the project of 

 a system of rail roads parallel to the Erie canal began at 

 once to be persistently agitated. A writer in the Argus 

 of 182'), urged upon capitalists the absolute necessity of their 

 entering upon the construction of a rail road to Schenectady 



