7 Wonders of the Industrial World - Part VI

Panama Canal

The Panama Canal was one of the largest and most difficult engineering projects ever undertaken. It is a 48 mile (77 km) international waterway that allows ships to pass between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, saving about 8000 miles from the journey around Cape Horn on the southern tip of South America. From the Atlantic side, the trip first takes you through a 7 mile (11 km) dredged channel in Limón Bay, then proceeds 11.5 miles (18.5 km) to the Gatun Locks. This is a series of three locks that raises ships 85 feet (26 metres) to Gatun Lake. The route continues south for 32 miles (51.5 km) to the Culebra Cut, which is a channel 8 miles (13 km) long and 492 feet (150 metres) wide. At the end of this are the Pedro Miguel Locks which lower ships 31 feet (9.4 metres) to a lake which takes you to the Miraflores Locks which lower ships an additional 52.5 feet (16 metres) to sea level in the bay of Panama in the Pacific Ocean.

The earliest suggestion for a canal across the Isthmus of Panama was made in 1534. After realizing the riches of Peru, Ecuador, and Asia, and taking into consideration the amount of time it took the gold to reach the ports of Spain, Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor and King of Spain ordered a survey for a route through Panama that would make the trips shorter. A working plan was drawn up in 1529, but never used.

Several surveys were made between 1850 and 1875 and showed that only two routes were practical, one across Panama and another across Nicaragua. In 1876 an international company was organized and two years later it obtained a concession from the Colombian government to dig a canal across the isthmus. The international company failed, and in 1880 a French company was organized by Ferdinand Marie de Lesseps, the builder of the Suez Canal.

The contract for the canal’s construction was signed on March 12th, 1881, and it was agreed the work would be carried out for 512 million French francs. De Lesseps opted for a sea-level canal based on the construction of the Suez Canal. He believed that if a sea-level canal worked when constructing the Suez Canal, it must work for the Panama Canal.

During 1882 the excavation of the Culebra Cut was started. As work proceeded, the worry of landslides and what slope should be adopted to avoid them became a major concern. In 1883 it was realised there was a tidal range of 20 feet at the Pacific, whereas, the Atlantic range was only about 1 foot. It was concluded that this difference in levels would be a danger to navigation. It was proposed that a tidal lock should be constructed at Panama to preserve the level from there to Colon. This plan would save about 10 million cubic metres of excavation.

Eventually, in 1899 the French attempt at constructing the Panama Canal was seen to be a failure. However, they had excavated a total of 59.75 million cubic metres which included 14.255 million cubic metres from the Culebra Cut. This lowered the peak by 102 metres. The value of work completed by the French was about $ 25 million. When the French left, they left behind a considerable amount of machinery, housing, and a hospital.

In 1899 the US Congress created an Isthmian Canal Commission to examine the possibilities of a Central American canal and to recommend a route. In June 1902, the U.S. Senate voted in favour of pursuing the Panamanian option, provided the necessary rights could be obtained.

The United States, under President Theodore Roosevelt, bought out the French equipment and excavations for $40 million. The first American steam shovel started work on the Culebra Cut on 11th November 1904. By December 1905 there were 2,600 men at work in the Culebra Cut.

John Frank Stevens, Chief Engineer from 1905 to 1907, successfully argued the case against the incredibly massive excavation required for a sea-level canal like the French had tried to build and convinced Theodore Roosevelt of the necessity and feasibility of a canal built with dams and locks.

Constructing the Panama Canal with locks still required the excavation of an enormous volume of material and was envisioned by Stevens as a massive earth-moving project using the Panama Railway as efficiently as possible. The railroad, starting in 1904, had to be comprehensively upgraded with heavy-duty double-tracked rails over most of the line to accommodate all the new rolling stock of about 115 heavy-duty locomotives and 2,300 dirt spoils railroad cars.

Peak excavation within the Culebra Cut exceeded 512,500 cubic metres of material in the first three months of 1907 and the total workforce exceeded 39,000. More than 4,000 wagons were used for the removal of the excavated material. Each wagon was capable of carrying 15 cubic metres of material. These wagons were hauled by 160 locomotives and unloaded by 30 Lidgerwood unloaders.

In 1907 there was a major slide at Cucaracha. The initial crack was first noted on October 4th, 1907, then without warning approximately 382,000 cubic metres of clay, moved more than 4 metres in 24 hours. The Cucaracha slide was to become a problem again in 1913, when it crossed the cut until it reached the opposite bank. The steam shovels excavated the slide as it was moving and eventually won the battle.

The building of the canal was completed in 1914, two years ahead of the target date of June 1, 1916. The canal was formally opened on August 15, 1914 with the passage of the cargo ship SS Ancon. Coincidentally, this was also the same month that fighting in World War I began in Europe.

Almost a hundred years since its opening, the canal continues to enjoy great success. Even though the ships for which the canal was built are long gone, the canal is still one of the most highly travelled waterways in the world, handling over 12,000 ships per year. The 51-mile crossing takes about nine hours to complete, an immense time saving when compared with rounding the tip of South America.

7 Wonders of the Industrial World - Part V

First Transcontinental Railroad

The First Transcontinental Railroad (originally known as the "Pacific Railroad") was built between 1863 and 1869 by the Central Pacific Railroad of California and the Union Pacific Railroad. The line was popularly known as the Overland Route after the principal passenger rail service that operated over the length of the line through the end of 1962.

Talk of a transcontinental railroad started shortly after steam powered railroads were invented in Great Britain and began to be introduced into the United States. The rail line was an important goal of President Abraham Lincoln, fostered during the early portion of his term and completed four years after his death. The building of the railroad was motivated in part to bind California to the Union during the American Civil War. It accelerated the populating of the West by white homesteaders and freed slaves, while greatly contributing to the decline of the Native American culture in the regions it served.

Pacific Railroad bills that proposed to grant lands, subsidies, and even as much as 90 million dollars towards the construction of the railroad were periodically introduced in Congress but none of them passed because a route could not be decided on. Congress was split along geographical lines; northerners wanted a northern route and southerners wanted a southern route.

Congress sent five surveying teams out in 1853 to explore possible railroad routes to California. California desperately needed railroads to replace the mule teams, stage coaches, and steamboats on which the entire economy was dependent and so began their first railroad (the Sacramento Valley Railroad) in 1854, with Theodore D. Judah as its chief engineer.

The railroad surveying teams finished in autumn of 1854. The results of their research were reviewed by the Secretary of War, Jefferson Davis of Mississippi but still no decision could be made due to a split in Congress between Northern and Southern interests.

In 1861, the Southern congressmen left Congress as a precursor to Southern secession, at which point action and funding progressed immediately to begin work on the Northern route. This decision hinged greatly on analyses of how use of the Railroad would impact the impending Civil War, which had just broken out.

The route followed the well established Oregon, Mormon and California Trails. The new line began in Omaha, Nebraska, followed the Platte River, crossed the Rocky Mountains at South Pass in Wyoming and then through northern Utah and Nevada before crossing the Sierras to Sacramento, California. Additional track was laid to connect Denver, Colorado and Salt Lake City, Utah and other cities not directly on the route.

The Central Pacific laid 690 miles (1,110 km) of track, starting in Sacramento, and the Union Pacific laid 1,087 miles (1,749 km) of track, starting in Omaha. At first, the Union Pacific was not directly connected to the Eastern U.S. rail network. Instead, trains had to be ferried across the Missouri River. In 1869 the Hannibal Bridge at Kansas City was built and allowed connection to the Kansas Pacific Railway. The Kansas Pacific then linked with the Denver Pacific Railway via Denver to Cheyenne in 1870. In 1873, the Union Pacific Missouri River Bridge opened and directly connected the Union Pacific mainline to the East.

The majority of the Union Pacific track was built by Irish laborers, and veterans of both the Union and Confederate armies. Brigham Young, President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, wished to see the railroad support emigration and the population centers in Ogden and Salt Lake City, Utah. As the track approached Utah Territory, he sought a labor contract with the Union Pacific. Under this completed contract, workgangs made up almost entirely of Mormons built much of the Union Pacific track in the Utah territory including the difficult section requiring extensive blasting and tunneling through the Weber River canyon.

The Central Pacific's grade was constructed primarily by many thousands of emigrant workers from China who were commonly referred to at the time as "Celestials" and China as the "Celestial Kingdom." Even though at first they were thought to be too weak or fragile to do this type of work, the decision was made to hire as many as could be found in California (where most were independent gold miners or in service industries such as laundries and kitchens). Many more were imported from China. Most of the men received between one and three dollars per day, but the workers arriving directly from China received much less. Eventually, they went on strike and gained a small increase in salary.

Most of the work consisted of the laying of the rails. The track laying was divided up into various parts: one gang laid rails on the ties, drove the spikes, and bolted the splice bars; at the same time, another gang distributed telegraph poles and wire along the grade. Almost all of the track work was done manually, using shovels, picks, axes, black powder, two-wheeled dump carts, wheelbarrows, ropes, mules, and horses, while supply trains carried all the necessary material for the construction.

In addition to track laying (which typically employed approximately 25% of the labor force), the operation also required the efforts of hundreds of tunnelers, explosive experts, bridge builders, blacksmiths, carpenters, engineers, masons, surveyors, teamsters, telegraphers, and even cooks, to name just a few of the trades involved in construction of the railroad.

Six years after work began, laborers of the Central Pacific Railroad from the west and the Union Pacific Railroad from the east met at Promontory Summit, Utah. It was here on May 10, 1869 that Governor Stanford drove the Golden Spike (or the Last Spike), that symbolized the completion of the transcontinental railroad.

Visible remains of the historic line are still easily located—hundreds of miles are still in service today, especially through the Sierra Nevada Mountains and canyons in Utah and Wyoming. While the original rail has long since been replaced because of age and wear, and the roadbed upgraded and repaired, the lines generally run on top of the original, handmade grade. Vista points on Interstate 80 through California's Truckee Canyon provide a panoramic view of many miles of the original Central Pacific line and of the snow sheds which make winter train travel safe and practical.

In areas where the original line has been bypassed and abandoned, primarily in Utah, the road grade is still obvious, as are numerous cuts and fills, especially the Big Fill a few miles east of Promontory.

Completion of the railroad was one of the crowning achievements in the crossing of plains and high mountains westward by the Union Pacific and eastward by the Central Pacific. The Transcontinental Railroad established a mechanized transportation network that revolutionized the population and economy of the American West.