This is a great 29 minute podcast that Bob Cudmore did with Michael Barrett the executive director of the Hudson Mohawk Industrial Gateway. https://soundcloud.com/obudmor.....sfriday-march-3-2017

We all know that Erie Blvd in Schenectady is the canal paved over but was was life like trying to get from the Erie Canal in Schenectady to the Hudson River headed towards NYC.  Troy and Waterford contain some serious locks both in elevation and in close proximity to each of them but that wasn't the whole story being a captain of a barge was a life of playing politics to get your barge down to NYC or vice versa

Barret gives a great overseeing of the transitions in the canal systems and locks leading to NYC or coming back up trying to go Westbound to the Great Lakes.