Panama Tourism and Travel: panama canal

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The 26th U.S. president, Theodore “Teddy” Roosevelt, was the first president to visit a foreign country. His enthusiasm for the Panama Canal project led him to see it for himself in November 1906.

In anticipation of his visit Panamanians and Zonians alike went into overdrive to make the place presentable. David McCullough writes in his seminal book, Path Between the Seas:,

Advanced preparations involved the efforts of thousands of people. . . . streets were scrubbed, houses were painted or whitewashed, flags were hung from windows and balconies. Programs were printed, schoolchildren were rehearsed in patriotic airs. The Republic of Panama declared his day of arrival a national day of “joy and exalted enthusiasm” and instructed the populace to behave, since “all thinkers, sociologists and philosophers of the universe [will] have their eyes upon us in penetrating scrutiny.”

At Ancon, construction of a big three-story frame hotel called the Tivoli, a structure begun the year before but still far from finished, rushed ahead with all speed as soon as Stevens learned of the visit. One wing of the building was finished and furnished in six weeks.

Once Roosevelt arrived he was not the most obliging to his hosts. At one point he pulled Dr. William Gorgas into his carriage then slipped out the other side with him for an impromptu inspection of Ancon Hospital. Later he would report their medical accomplishments were astounding.

The President toured the bay in a tug boat and then popped in for a surprise visit and lunch at an employee mess hall instead of showing up for the luncheon in his honor at the Tivoli. He took the site-seeing train to Culebra Cut where he walked the railway ties. He was continuously pointing out the things he wanted to see and demanded to see them, even going so far as to inquire of black workers if they had any complaints. In his enthusiasm he inspected everything from dam sites, to steam shovels, to kitchens, to military troops. Teddy’s secret service men frantically scurried around trying to keep up as he dashed around the Canal Zone. Standing at the back of the train, he waved his hat and flashed his toothy smile at the children lined up to wave flags as he passed.

After his whirlwind three-day visit everyone complained of exhaustion. As for Teddy, his only regret was that he didn’t have time to explore Panama’s tropical forest. He wrote in a letter to his son Kermit,

All my old enthusiasm for natural history seemed revived, and I would have given a good deal to have stayed and tried to collect specimens

Panama Canal Locks Gates

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The gates which separate the chambers in each flight of locks must hold back a considerable weight of water, and must be both reliable and strong enough to withstand accidents, as the failure of a gate could unleash a catastrophic flood of water downstream.

These gates are of enormous size, ranging from 47 to 82 ft (14.33 to 24.99 m) high, depending on position, and are 7 ft (2.13 m) thick; the tallest gates are required at Miraflores, due to the large tidal range there. The heaviest leaves weigh 662 t (730 short tons; 652 long tons); the hinges themselves each weigh 16.7 t (36,817 lb). Each gate has two leaves, 65 ft (19.81 m) wide, which close to a V shape with the point upstream; this arrangement has the effect that the force of water from the higher side pushes the ends of the gates together firmly. The gates can only be opened when, in the operating cycle, water level on both sides is equal.

The original gate machinery consisted of a huge drive wheel, powered by an electric motor, to which was attached a connecting rod, which in turn attached to the middle of the gate. These mechanisms were replaced with hydraulic struts beginning in January 1998, after 84 years of service. The gates are hollow and buoyant, much like the hull of a ship, and are so well balanced that two 19 kW (25 hp) motors are enough to move each gate leaf; if one motor fails, the other can still operate the gate at reduced speed.

Each chamber also contains a pair of auxiliary gates which can be used to divide the chamber in two; this is designed to allow for the transit of smaller vessels — such as canal tugs — without using the full quantity of water. They were originally incorporated because the overwhelming majority of all ships of the early 1900s were less than 600 ft (183 m) in length, and would therefore not need the full length of the lock chamber. Nowadays these gates are rarely used; instead, small boats such as tour boats, tugs, and yachts are passed in groups.

The Panama Canal tugboat fleet

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Tugboats are floating equipment that assist vessels during their transits especially at the entrances and exits of the locks and during their transit through Gaillard Cut, where a great maneuverability and power is required

Gaillard Cut

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The Gaillard Cut, or Culebra Cut, is an artificial valley that cuts through the continental divide in Panama. The cut forms part of the Panama Canal, linking Lake Gatún, and thereby the Atlantic Ocean, to the Gulf of Panama and hence the Pacific Ocean. It is 12.6 km (7.8 mi) from the Pedro Miguel lock on the Pacific side to the Chagres River arm of Lake Gatun, with a water level 26 m (85 ft) above sea level.

Construction of the cut was one of the great engineering feats of its time; the immense effort required to complete it was justified by the great significance of the canal to shipping, and in particular the strategic interests of the United States of America.

Construction

French work

As described in History of the Panama Canal, the excavation of the Culebra Cut was begun by a French venture, led by Ferdinand de Lesseps, which was attempting to build a sea-level canal between the oceans, with a bottom width of 22 metres (72 ft). Digging at Culebra began on January 22, 1881. A combination of disease, underestimation of the problem, and financial difficulties led to the collapse of the French effort, which was bought out by the United States in 1904. The French had excavated some 14,256,000 m³ (18,646,000 cubic yards) of material from the cut, and had lowered the summit from 64 metres (210 ft) above sea level to 59 metres (193 ft),over a relatively narrow width.

American work

The United States took over on May 4, 1904. Under the leadership of John F. Stevens, and later George Washington Goethals, the American effort started work on a wider, but not as deep a cut, as part of a new plan for an elevated lock-based canal, with a bottom width of 91 metres (300 ft); this would require creation of a valley up to 540 metres (a third of a mile) wide at the top. A vast amount of new earthmoving equipment was imported, and a comprehensive system of railways was constructed for the removal of the immense amounts of earthen and rocky spoil.

Major David du Bose Gaillard, of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, joined the project at the same time as Goethals, and he was put in charge of the central district of the canal, which was responsible for all of the work between Gatun Lake and the Pedro Miguel locks — most notably, the Culebra Cut. Gaillard brought dedication and quiet, clear-sighted leadership to his difficult, complex task.

The scale of the work was massive. Hundreds of large steam drills bored holes in which were planted tons of dynamite, which blasted the rock of the cut so that it could be excavated by steam shovels. Dozens of spoils trains took the spoil from the shovels to the landfill dumps, about twelve miles (19 km) away. In a typical day, 160 trainloads of material were hauled away from a cut nine miles long (14 km). This workload on the railroads required some skillful co-ordination. At the busiest times, there was a train going inbound or outbound almost every minute.

Six thousand men worked in the cut, drilling holes, placing explosives, controlling steam shovels, and running the dirt trains. They also moved and extended the railroad tracks as the work moved forward. Twice a day work stopped for blasting, and then the steam shovels were moved in to take the loose spoil (dirt and rock) away. More than 600 holes filled with dynamite were fired daily. In all, 60 million pounds (27,000 tonnes) of dynamite were used. In some locations, about 52,000 pounds (23.6 metric tonnes) of dynamite were planted and detonated for a single blast.

Landslides

The excavation of the cut was one of the greatest areas of uncertainty in the creation of the canal, due to the unpredicted large landslides. The International Board of Consulting Engineers had mistakenly decided that the rock would be stable at a height of 73.5 metres with a slope of 1 in 1.5; in practice, the rock began to collapse from that slope at a height of only 19.5 metres. The misjudgment was in part due to unforeseen oxidation of the underlying iron strata due to water infiltration, which caused weakening and eventually a collapse of the strata.

The first and largest major slide occurred in 1907 at Cucaracha. The initial crack was first noted on October 4, 1907, followed by the mass wasting of about 382,000 m³ (500,000 cubic yards) of clay. This slide caused many people to suggest the construction of the Panama Canal would be impossible; Gaillard described the slides as tropical glaciers, made of mud instead of ice. The clay was too soft to be excavated by the steam shovels, and it was therefore largely removed by sluicing it with water from a high level.

After this, the sediment in the upper levels of the cut was removed, resulting in less weight over the weak strata. The slide still continued to cause minor problems after this

Completion

Steam shovels broke through the Culebra Cut in May, 1913. The Americans had lowered the summit of the cut from 59 metres (193 ft) to 12 metres (40 ft) above sea level, at the same time widening it considerably, and they had excavated over 76 million cubic metres (100 million cubic yards) of material. Some 23 million cubic metres (30 million cubic yards) of this material was additional to the planned excavation, having been brought into the cut by the landslides.

Gaillard died from a brain tumor in Baltimore, Maryland, on December 5, 1913, having been promoted to colonel just one month prior, and hence he never saw the opening of the canal in 1914. The Culebra Cut, as it was originally known, was renamed to the Gaillard Cut on April 27, 1915, in his honor

VIDEO: The Panama Canal

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Panama Canal Transit Tour

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