 The canal's value was in its right of way, and the C&M later sold most of the canal to the Pittsburgh, Cleveland and Toledo Railroad, which filled it in and used it as the bed for its track.As early as 1852, the C&M was in talks to make its eastern connection with the Atlantic & Great Western Railway (A&GW).The impetus behind the talks came from the completion in early 1851 of the Erie Railway (then known as the New York and Erie Rail Road) between New York City and Dunkirk, New York (a small town on the shore of Lake Erie halfway between Buffalo, New York, and the New York-Pennsylvania border).