Railways in Michigan and Ohio were tied to Vanderbilt’s road, and wheat and many other products came to Buffalo not only on cars but by ships on the Great Lakes, and were then sent to New York and across the ocean. So the canal gradually did less business and the railroad did more, for people could travel faster by rail, and some things, like meat and fruit, must be carried swiftly or they will spoil on the way. Now, instead of ten-ton boats on the Mohawk, or the slow-going craft of “Clinton’s Ditch,” great freight trains rush down the Mohawk valley, bearing nearly a hundred thousand bushels of grain behind one engine. Such a load would have fed George Washington’s armies for a long time. After a while one track was not sufficient for so many trains going east and west. Too much time was lost in waiting on sidings and there was danger of collision. For this reason a second track was put down, then a third and a fourth, and now all the way from Albany to Buffalo there are two tracks for passenger trains and two for freight. Down the Hudson there are but two tracks, because the space between the river and the uplands is so narrow. Many years ago a rival road, called the West Shore Railway, was built along the west bank of the Hudson, and then westward to Buffalo. This with its two tracks was bought by the owners of the Central road, so that now they have six tracks across the state. Even these are hardly enough, for every year the great West has more people, raises more grain to ship to eastern cities and to Europe, and requires more goods from mills and factories along the Atlantic coast. There are many local trains that run between New York and Albany, or Albany and Syracuse, or Syracuse and Buffalo. These are convenient for the smaller towns and cities. Then there are many through trains whose destination is Buffalo, Detroit, Chicago, Indianapolis, or St. Louis. Quickly changing cars at lake Michigan or the Mississippi river, the traveler is hurried on to the Rocky mountains, the Pacific ocean, Alaska, or the lands of Asia or Australia across the sea. The New York Central is not the only great road that runs westward through the state. The Erie road was built through the southern counties from New York to lake Erie, partly because the townships through which it runs were jealous of the privileges which the great canal gave to the people farther north. The Delaware, Lackawanna and Western also comes from New York through the coal region of Pennsylvania, and runs near the Erie road to Buffalo.