A different Erie Canal

JJohnson

Banned
I'm working on an alternate US, which is including Canada. Given this, do you think the Erie Canal would follow the same path?

Or would it be more logical to go from Albany to Oswego first, then expand to Buffalo? And why did it avoid Oneigo lake?

Or, from Lake Erie, go through Port Colbourne through to St Catharines, Ontario and then Oswego to Albany, then NY.
 
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Flubber

Banned
I'm working on an alternate US, which is including Canada. Given this, do you think the Erie Canal would follow the same path?


The canal won't follow the same path because there won't be a canal in the first place. :rolleyes: Why have you forgotten why the canal was built in the first place?

The US controls "Canada" your timeline, right? That means the US controls the St. Lawrence river. Controlling the St. Lawrence means maritime trade on the Great Lakes can, once Niagara is bypassed, use the St. Lawrence to reach the Atlantic and the US east coast. There's no need for an "Erie" canal across upstate New York. All that is needed is a canal that links Lake Erie with Lake Ontario.

In the OTL, the canal was built because the St. Lawrence couldn't be used. In your ATL the St. Lawrence can be used so why build a canal across upstate New York?
 
I'm not so sure about that Flubber. The problems with the St. Lawrence freezes and a canal across NY cuts hundreds of miles off of the voyage. Furthermore directly connecting Montreal to New York would benefit both markets.

The problem is that any major delay in constructing the canal makes it's importance limited as the rise of railroads cuts short its usage.

An alternate canal has every chance of going up the Mohawk Valley, using Lake Oneida and reaching Lake Ontario at Oswego. That cuts a lot of time off of travel between Montreal and New York.

Benjamin
 
I'm not so sure about that Flubber. The problems with the St. Lawrence freezes and a canal across NY cuts hundreds of miles off of the voyage. Furthermore directly connecting Montreal to New York would benefit both markets.

The problem is that any major delay in constructing the canal makes it's importance limited as the rise of railroads cuts short its usage.

An alternate canal has every chance of going up the Mohawk Valley, using Lake Oneida and reaching Lake Ontario at Oswego. That cuts a lot of time off of travel between Montreal and New York.

Benjamin

1) a StLawrence seaway equivalent would be a ship canal, not a barge canal, so shippimg would be much cheaper using it.

2) the Erie canal does go to Oswego, or at least theres a side branch that does, so thats not an 'alternate'. It does involve a fair bit of lockage.

3) canals are very expensive to build. Would you rather dig several hundred miles of canal or several 10s of miles?

4) by the time the Erie was finished iotl, railways were in the near future. Postpone the Erie for 5 years, and it might well be decided to wait a few more and build an RR for the Oswego - Albany link.


BTW, dont forget the lockage and short canals needed between Lake Ontario and Montroyal (as the city is likely to be called in as US setting).
 
The canal won't follow the same path because there won't be a canal in the first place. :rolleyes: Why have you forgotten why the canal was built in the first place?

The US controls "Canada" your timeline, right? That means the US controls the St. Lawrence river. Controlling the St. Lawrence means maritime trade on the Great Lakes can, once Niagara is bypassed, use the St. Lawrence to reach the Atlantic and the US east coast. There's no need for an "Erie" canal across upstate New York. All that is needed is a canal that links Lake Erie with Lake Ontario.

In the OTL, the canal was built because the St. Lawrence couldn't be used. In your ATL the St. Lawrence can be used so why build a canal across upstate New York?

Yes, one important reason why Americans built a canal through upstate New York was the fact that the US did not control the St. Lawrence and thus building a "Niagara" canal before or instead of an "Erie" canal didn't make sense. However, given that overall economic and demographic conditions in TTL pre-1820 wouldn't be significantly different from OTL, an "Erie" Canal would still be a higher priority than a "Niagara" Canal. Now in TTL we might have competing interests building the two canals simultaneously during the late 18-teens/early '20s (as I did in CoHE).

(I've asked and contemplated similar questions regarding freeways and bridges.)
 
There will be no Erie Canal period.

the canal linking the Hudson and Champlain valleys will be built earlier and along with the initial short canals on the St. Lawrence by passing its rapids at key points. This will be expanded and upgraded as needed until the RR arrives.

Without Rideau and Erie....Welland Canal analogue will probably also build sooner and expand in importance earlier.

Until RR are built.... Montréal will be the primary seaport of the interior lakes...both north and south of it. it will gain a boost in growth for a short period.

It will still be Montréal, just anglicised. New York will surpass them in importance eventually once the RR reaches the shores of lake Erie . it depends on how entrenched shipping interests are in Montréal. It will certainly be as important as Philadelphia or Baltimore. Their RR links will be more directly to the Ohio River at Pittsburgh which spurred their early growth.
 
Guys, the Erie Canal was built with funding from...the State of New York and, mostly, citizens of that state. Whether or not they do so has absolutely nothing to do with the presence of an American controlled St Lawrence if that river is under the control of a different state. Even IOTL, when the Erie Canal already existed, Pennsylvania spent huge amounts of money trying to create a canal-railroad system comparable to try and compete with it.

If New Yorkers feel they want to be able to compete with the St Lawrence, they're going to try regardless of whether or not the St Lawrence is British or American.
 
Guys, the Erie Canal was built with funding from...the State of New York and, mostly, citizens of that state. Whether or not they do so has absolutely nothing to do with the presence of an American controlled St Lawrence if that river is under the control of a different state. Even IOTL, when the Erie Canal already existed, Pennsylvania spent huge amounts of money trying to create a canal-railroad system comparable to try and compete with it.

If New Yorkers feel they want to be able to compete with the St Lawrence, they're going to try regardless of whether or not the St Lawrence is British or American.


B I N G O ! Well put.
 

Flubber

Banned
Guys, the Erie Canal was built with funding from...the State of New York and, mostly, citizens of that state. Whether or not they do so has absolutely nothing to do with the presence of an American controlled St Lawrence if that river is under the control of a different state.


You still don't understand. :(

The canal made New York City the US Midwest's sole Atlantic trade port. The Midwest's primary export, grain, could reach the Midwest's primary export market, Europe, without first passing through Britain's hands. That made NYC an international trade center and the largest US city when it had earlier just been one of several coastal ports. Cities along the canal boomed as well. Buffalo, IIRC, grew from something like 500 people to 20,000 in only twenty years thanks to canal.

As you note, the gains New York state and NYC made from the canal spurred imitators. Pennsylvania spent millions trying to plug into the same trade via canals and later railroads, but Pennsylvania never managed to recreate the same boom New York state and NYC received because because the "all-US" trade route was already fixed thanks to the canal and New York-based companies continued to upgrade the route with canals and railroads of their own.

Quite simple, Pennsylvania was in an infrastructure race with New York and New York's early lead proved insurmountable.

If New Yorkers feel they want to be able to compete with the St Lawrence, they're going to try regardless of whether or not the St Lawrence is British or American.

If New Yorkers feel they want to compete with an "all-US" trade route using the St. Lawrence to move Midwest grain to Europe, they'll build a canal. However, just as with Pennsylvania's projects in the OTL, the New York project(s) will be trying to siphon trade and the money that comes with it from a preexisting trade network.

Not only that, a trade route which uses the St. Lawrence will be less "inter-modal" and therefore less costly. In the OTL, grain reached Buffalo by ship, was broken into loads canal boats then carried to Albany, was transferred to river transports to reach NYC, and was loaded on oceanic transports there. In an ATL in which the St. Lawrence is controlled by the US, grain will reach Niagara by ship, be transported by canal or wagon to Lake Ontario, and then loaded onto oceanic shipping.

Fewer changes of hands, fewer changes of mode, less break bulk, less infrastructure, less wastage, less cost, less time, more profit.

Could there be a canal linking Lake Erie/Ontario and the Hudson in an ATL in which the US controls the St. Lawrence? Most certainly.

Will such a canal provide the same benefits and economic boom the OTL Erie canal did? Most certainly not.
 
As you note, the gains New York state and NYC made from the canal spurred imitators. Pennsylvania spent millions trying to plug into the same trade via canals and later railroads, but Pennsylvania never managed to recreate the same boom New York state and NYC received because because the "all-US" trade route was already fixed thanks to the canal and New York-based companies continued to upgrade the route with canals and railroads of their own.

No, Pennsylvania never saw the gains that New York did (although, of course, it did see significant gains) because it never managed to create a system of friction-saving transport as simple as the Erie Canal. There were multiple instances of breaking bulk (un-packing your cargo to re-load it onto something else), which is one of the most costly parts of a journey because the Pennsylvania system consisted of several different methods of travel, from canals to animal and gravity powered rail.

You see, Pennsylvania doesn't have any super-convenient breaks in the mountains that bisect it, unlike the Mohawk Valley, which is a super-convenient break in the mountains that bisect New York State. It's one of the single most obvious things in the world to build a canal there, someone is going to do it eventually.
 
Its not that New Yorkers would not benefit...the focus of that benefit would simply shift to the north and west of the state.
Ogdensburg and Plattsburgh will gain substantially and you may even get greater settlement along the entire river on both sides that focused on the Mohawk OTL. Oswego and Rochester directly on the lake and direct access to what will early on be the dominant access point for the interior to markets in Europe. Shipment to and from points south probably would still ship down or up the Champlain-Hudson valley to/from NYC.

Hmm you might even get profitable stern and side wheelers running the course of the River this time around with the increased traffic.

So there is plenty of reason for New York investors to invest in and even become major funders of upgraded canal work on the St. Lawrence over an interior canal that would be more expensive and probably have lesser profit margins.

The Mohawk corridor could remain more focused on Agricultural and supporting pursuits, while industry shifts to a more northerly focus. within the state.
 
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katchen

Banned
If the US controls Canada, an "Ottawa Canal" from the Ottawa River to Lake Nippsing and Lake Huron becomes a major competitor to the Erie Canal and Montreal, a major competitor to New York City, limited only by the fact that the St. Lawrence River is blocked by ice part of the year. (Then again, during the 19th Century, so are the Great Lakes and so is the Erie Canal). An "Oswego Canal" can also be competitive if a canal is also built from what is now Toronto to Lake Simcoe and then to Lake Huron, also avoiding Lake Erie and Detroit.
From Lake Huron, it can get intereesting. One can travel to Chicago and then to the Illinois River with a minimal canal and thence to St. Louis. Or if someone builds a canal to the Wisconsin River and the rapids on the Fox and Wisconsin River locked or canalized, reach the upper Mississippi. Or reach Lake Superior via a Sault St. Marie set of locks, then perhaps a canal from the St. Louis River at Lake Superior's western end to the upper Mississippi and via a Minnesota River and Red River of the North Canal, to Lake Winnipeg and the Saskatchewan or even the Churchill and Athapasca-Mackenzie River systems. It's all doable, if the money can be raised to do it before railroads make these canals obselete.
 
I'm working on an alternate US, which is including Canada. Given this, do you think the Erie Canal would follow the same path?

Or, from Lake Erie, go through Port Colbourne through to St Catharines, Ontario and then Oswego to Albany, then NY.

The second choice seems potentially interesting.

There are three possibilities for providing water transport to the Great Lakes.

1) An "Erie" Canal linking the Hudson to Lake Erie.

2) An "Ontario Canal" linking the Hudson to Lake Ontario, and a "Niagara Canal" linking Lake Ontario to Lake Erie.

3) Only a "Niagara Canal".

OTL, all these routes were complicated by the national border; ATL this won't be a factor.

However.

Route 1 is the longest in construction.

Route 3 is the shortest in construction, but it has a serious problem: the St. Lawrence is frozen up much of the year, and is blocked at Montreal until a canal is dug there.

Route 2 is shorter than 1, longer than 2, open all year; but it has two extra breakpoints - at the foot of the Niagara Canal and the head of the Ontario Canal. This may offset the lower cost of construction.

I think Route 1 will still be built. The advantages to New York state are too great to overlook.

Incidentally - regarding the national issue - how much upper Lakes freight of Canadian origin went via the Erie Canal when the St. Lawrence was frozen? (If any?)
 
Its not that New Yorkers would not benefit...the focus of that benefit would simply shift to the north and west of the state.
Ogdensburg and Plattsburgh will gain substantially and you may even get greater settlement along the entire river on both sides that focused on the Mohawk OTL. Oswego and Rochester directly on the lake and direct access to what will early on be the dominant access point for the interior to markets in Europe. Shipment to and from points south probably would still ship down or up the Champlain-Hudson valley to/from NYC.

Hmm you might even get profitable stern and side wheelers running the course of the River this time around with the increased traffic.

So there is plenty of reason for New York investors to invest in and even become major funders of upgraded canal work on the St. Lawrence over an interior canal that would be more expensive and probably have lesser profit margins.

The Mohawk corridor could remain more focused on Agricultural and supporting pursuits, while industry shifts to a more northerly focus. within the state.

It's really not an either or kind of thing. Canals were built up and down the eastern seaboard, often stretching across the Appalachians into the Mississippi Basin, even after the Erie Canal was complete. No one ever said, "Well, there's already one up in New York, guess we shouldn't bother".

Same thing will happen with Quebec.
 
benjamin said:
The problems with the St. Lawrence freezes and a canal across NY cuts hundreds of miles off of the voyage. Furthermore directly connecting Montreal to New York would benefit both markets.
True, which raises the obvious question, why not build the St Lawrence Seaway, instead? It's much simpler.... Besides which, the St Lawrence opens the entire Great Lakes to ocean trade, which the Erie wouldn't.
benjamin said:
An alternate canal has every chance of going up the Mohawk Valley, using Lake Oneida and reaching Lake Ontario at Oswego. That cuts a lot of time off of travel between Montreal and New York.
Always an option, of course. Indeed, if you can find backers, there's no reason not to do both.
 
I agree that an American Canada means that the Ottawa canal gets built, but I would ultimately expect it to the this TLs equivelent to the seaway project, not built until the 20th century. As far the Seaway route itself, and the Welland, yes, they are both going to happen much sooner. I'd expect a canal sized for oceangoing ships essentially as soon as steam becomes the norm on the Atlantic, and that the locks and canal systems will have been established much sooner.

I expect that an "Erie" canal will happen, but that it's going to get to Lake Ontario, with the Welland connecting to Erie and the upper lakes. In fact, I suspect that the Ontario canal would be very much a secondary branch, pushed by mostly local interests. The real goal is going to be reaching Montreal, and that is the only part of the system that will have any hope of being economically worthwhile. Ultimately the economics of the Erie/Ontario connection will look more like the Canadian Rideau and Trent Severn projects that OTL's Erie.

Having mentioned Trent Severn, and the enhanced importance of the Welland canal in it's early years the other big thing that pops into my head is that the Trent Severn, especially in terms of the never even close to completed Newmarket branch, seems much more likely. A route from the northern shore of Ontario up to Gerogian Bay bypassing Detroit is going to be a lot more attractive TTL, and I could imagine if it is built by the beginning of the 1870s that it could actually be economically valuable (if not necessarily commercially viable) right up until seagoing ships reach Georgian Bay through the Ottawa Valley.
 
As a local, if you remove the canal, you've just chrono-suckerpunched Western New York. This whole area was based around the canal.

I don't know about that...Rochester and Oswego would be poised for more direct access to the markets of Europe itself. Also a Canal bypassing Niagara Falls need not necessarily be built across the Peninsula. Niagara Falls or Tonawanda to Rochester ( or somewhere around Olcott would be more likely though perhaps) are also possible, depends on the physical limits of coming down the escarpment there as opposed to the Niagara peninsula. there were several canals linking the Ohio to lake Erie, maybe you get two on either side of the Niagara River.
 
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It's really not an either or kind of thing. Canals were built up and down the eastern seaboard, often stretching across the Appalachians into the Mississippi Basin, even after the Erie Canal was complete. No one ever said, "Well, there's already one up in New York, guess we shouldn't bother".

Same thing will happen with Quebec.
???
What canal ever crossed the Appalachians?

And canal building slowed massively once rail came in.
 
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