The Waterford Flight is a set of locks on the

Erie Canal The Erie Canal is a historic canal in upstate New York that runs east-west between the Hudson River and Lake Erie. Completed in 1825, the canal was the first navigable waterway connecting the Atlantic Ocean to the Great Lakes, vastly reducing t ...

in upstate

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

. Erie Canal Locks E-2 through E-6 make up the combined flight at Waterford which lifts vessels from the

Hudson River The Hudson River is a river that flows from north to south primarily through eastern New York. It originates in the Adirondack Mountains of Upstate New York and flows southward through the Hudson Valley to the New York Harbor between N ...

to the

Mohawk River The Mohawk River is a U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map accessed October 3, 2011 river in the U.S. state of New York. It is the largest tributary of the Hudson River. The Mohawk f ...

, bypassing

Cohoes Falls Cohoes Falls ''Kanien'ké:ha'' (Kanyenkeha or Mohawk language) for "a boat is in the water / is actively submerged"">Mohawk language">''Kanien'ké:ha'' (Kanyenkeha or Mohawk language) for "a boat is in the water / is actively submerged"is a wat ...

. Built in 1915, the Waterford Flight is still in use today as part of the

New York State Canal System The New York State Canal System (formerly known as the New York State Barge Canal) is a successor to the Erie Canal and other canals within New York. Currently, the system is composed of the Erie Canal, the Oswego Canal, the Cayuga–Seneca Cana ...

, which is open to public and commercial traffic. The Waterford Flight is the series of locks with the highest elevation gain () relative to its length () for any canal lock system in the United States.

Planning

The original route of the Erie Canal bypassed Cohoes Falls to the south through the city of Cohoes. At the turn of the century, plans for an enlarged Erie Canal were being drawn up to accommodate more traffic and larger vessels. However, instead of constructing canals from scratch like had been done previously, the plan proposed "canalizing" the local rivers. For the plan near Cohoes, it involved routing a channel from the Mohawk River north of Cohoes Falls directly to the Hudson River at

Waterford "Waterford remains the untaken city" , mapsize = 220px , pushpin_map = Ireland#Europe , pushpin_map_caption = Location within Ireland##Location within Europe , pushpin_relief = 1 , coordinates ...

. Traffic would now flow directly from the Hudson to the Mohawk via the Waterford Flight and completely bypass the old canals from Albany to Cohoes. The Troy Federal Lock and Dam would serve as the unofficial start of the Erie Canal, with the first lock of the Waterford Flight being the official beginning, hence it being named E-2 to this day.

Construction

Construction of the Waterford Flight began in 1905 and took 10 years to complete. The 5 massive locks dwarfed the previous iterations and were mandated to be long, wide, and deep. These dimensions became the standard on the Barge Canal System and have been maintained to this day. In addition to the locks, there are two large guard gates at the northern end of the flight. These gates can be lowered to block additional flow of water from the Mohawk River through the locks to prevent damage during floods. The locks have undergone periods of major restoration in the past couple decades, including replacement of lock doors and resurfacing of the concrete within the locks themselves.

Present status

Today, the Waterford Flight is in use and is managed by the New York State Canal Corporation. The site of the Waterford Flight is also home to

Lock 6 State Canal Park Lock(s) may refer to: Common meanings * Lock and key, a mechanical device used to secure items of importance * Lock (water navigation), a device for boats to transit between different levels of water, as in a canal Arts and entertainment * ''Lo ...

, which follows the length of the canal between the Hudson and the Mohawk and allows public access to the locks and a boat ramp at the Northern end. The set of locks was designated as a

National Historic Civil Engineering Landmark __NOTOC__ The following is a list of Historic Civil Engineering Landmarks as designated by the American Society of Civil Engineers since it began the program in 1964. The designation is granted to projects, structures, and sites in the United State ...

by the

American Society of Civil Engineers American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, pe ...

in 2011.

References

Erie Canal Historic Civil Engineering Landmarks {{DEFAULTSORT:Waterford Flight