The bottleneck is still the portage

I ran betweenness centrality on the rail network of upstate New York — present-day track, 35 towns. The top six are all Erie Canal towns.

Syracuse — betweenness 0.192 Rome — betweenness 0.141 Buffalo — betweenness 0.136 Utica — betweenness 0.132 Little Falls — betweenness 0.121 Rochester — betweenness 0.119 Batavia — betweenness 0.112 Johnstown — betweenness 0.109 Schenectady — betweenness 0.103 Amsterdam — betweenness 0.096 Tonawanda — betweenness 0.070 Auburn — betweenness 0.059 Corning — betweenness 0.050 Geneva — betweenness 0.048 North Tonawanda — betweenness 0.048 Hornell — betweenness 0.033 Albany — betweenness 0.025 Rensselaer — betweenness 0.025 Niagara Falls — betweenness 0.025 Elmira — betweenness 0.025 Binghamton — betweenness 0.022 Olean — betweenness 0.005 Ogdensburg — betweenness 0.000 Troy — betweenness 0.000 Middletown — betweenness 0.000 Canandaigua — betweenness 0.000 Salamanca — betweenness 0.000 Lockport — betweenness 0.000 Saratoga Springs — betweenness 0.000 Mechanicville — betweenness 0.000 Hudson — betweenness 0.000 Lackawanna — betweenness 0.000 Oswego — betweenness 0.000 Oneonta — betweenness 0.000 Port Jervis — betweenness 0.000 Syracuse Rome Buffalo Utica Little Falls Rochester
Erie Canalmain line
Six towns, one line across the middle of the state. The canal is drawn by hand, not surveyed.

canal ends here

Not about size

Rome ranks 2nd with 3 rail connections. Buffalo has 10 and ranks 3rd. The bottlenecks are the small towns.

Why these towns

Rome is the Oneida Carry — boats hauled overland between the Mohawk and Wood Creek, the only significant water route from the Atlantic to the interior other than the St. Lawrence. Little Falls is the gorge, a 44-foot drop over about a mile. Both were canalised in the 1790s, a generation before the Erie.

200 years on, the same geography.

How the score is counted

Small print