"That may all be so," replied the other, "but my railroad is just
as wide as yours."

This statement was true. Practically no railroad, even as late as
the sixties, was wider than another. They were all single-tracked
lines. Even the New York Central system in 1866 was practically a
single-track road; and the Commodore could not claim to any
particular superiority over his neighbors and rivals in this
particular. Instead of sneering at his "seventeen-mile"
colleague, Vanderbilt might have remembered that his own fine
system had grown up in less than two generations from a modest
narrow-gage track running from "nothing to nowhere." The
Vanderbilt lines, which today with their controlled and
affiliated systems comprise more than 13,000 miles of railroad--a
large portion of which is double-tracked, no mean amount being
laid with third and fourth tracks is the outgrowth of a little
seventeen-mile line, first chartered in 1826, and finished for
traffic in 1831. This little railroad was known as the Mohawk and
Hudson, and it extended from Albany to Schenectady. It was the
second continuous section of railroad line operated by steam in
the United States, and on it the third locomotive built in
America, the De Witt Clinton, made a satisfactory trial trip in
August, 1831.

The success of this experiment created a sensation far and wide
and led to rapid railroad building in other parts of the country
in the years immediately following. The experiences of a
participant in this trial trip are described about forty years
later in a letter written by Judge J.L. Gillis of Philadelphia: