This growth would continue due to transportation improvements in the 1820s. Troy's businessmen had already built a turnpike to Schenectady, the path followed today by Route 2 from Troy to Colonie. These trade routes were enhanced by the Erie and Champlain canals, which opened new markets to the north and west, while the Troy Steamboat Company's debut did likewise for the south. The access to iron ore mines in the Adirondack Mountains also got some local businessmen into iron refining. In 1835 the Rensselaer and Saratoga Railroad brought that technology to the city, and in 1842 the completion of the Schenectady and Troy Railroad linked Troy to the vast network that reached as far west as Buffalo.