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FIRST STEAM TRAIN

Program
NYS Historic
Subject
Transportation
Location
Madison Ave & S Allen St, Albany, NY 12203, USA
Lat/Long
42.666444, -73.791889
Grant Recipient
Pine Hills Neighborhood Association
Historic Marker

FIRST STEAM TRAIN

Inscription

FIRST STEAM TRAIN
IN 1831 THE MOHAWK & HUDSON
RAILROAD ESTABLISHED THE
FIRST STEAM PASSENGER TRAIN
SERVICE IN NYS BETWEEN THIS
JUNCTION AND SCHENECTADY.
WILLIAM G. POMEROY FOUNDATION 2021

In August of 1831 the first steam-powered passenger train in New York State, powered by the locomotive DeWitt Clinton, traveled between this place (junction of Railroad and Great Western Turnpike, now Western Avenue in Albany) on the Mohawk & Hudson Railroad line and Schenectady.

From the August 2, 1831 edition of Morrisville’s Republican Monitor: 

We learn that the company have decided on using steam power only; and there is probably no road in this country or Europe more admirably calculated for locomotive engines…The Mohawk and Hudson rail-road has an important advantage over other roads, in being perfectly straight, and consequently less liable to lateral pressure; and the engines placed upon it will not be retarded by any intervening inclined plane, as they will be employed upon the level between the hills at Albany and Schenectady.