Steam Power: Building the Panama Canal

[Ed Morris]

In this thread, over the next few days, I will be posting historical photos of steam power used in the building of the Panama Canal.  These photos came from a book I found while clearing out stuff from my mother's home last month.  The book was sold at our estate sale, but I copied all the railroad related photos first.



If you need to refresh your memory on the construction of the Panama Canal, here' a Wikipedia article that is pretty comprehensive.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panama_Canal

The French began work on the canal in 1888, but gave up on the project due to cost, engineering problems, and a very high casualty rate among workers from disease and accidents.  They left behind much of their railroad equipment, which the Americans acquired when they began work on the canal in 1904.  That's where we begin.

[Ray Dunakin]

Cool find, thanks for posting the pics!

[finescalerr]

I hope you guys remember Ed. I published several of his articles and a few contest submissions. His first models were good but, by the time I stopped publishing, he was building locos, structures, and rolling stock able to hold their own with anyone's. He has taken a break from modeling to restore vintage radios and phonographs. -- Russ

[Ed Morris]

During the French attempt to build the canal, over 22,000 workers died from accidents, malaria and yellow fever.  At the time of the French effort, doctors did not know the mosquito was the vector in malaria and yellow fever.

By the time the U.S. got involved, the role of the mosquito was understood, and by improving sanitation and mosquito control, the death rate from malaria and yellow fever was almost eliminated.  Dr. Walter Reed gets most of the credit for this success in the history books, but others were involved as well.

The U.S. brought in hundreds of workers from the United States and thousands from the West Indies.  The death toll from various causes during the American construction was about 5000.



The U.S. was fortunate in finding good leadership for the project.  In 1907, Maj. George Goethals, of the U.S. Corps of Engineers, was appointed to head the project and he remained in charge until the canal was completed in 1914.  Below is his rail car:



What is the equipment on top of his rail car?  A swamp cooler?  Looks like an air conditioner, but I didn't think they had been invented yet.

Next time I will begin posting images of the steam power used in the actual canal construction.

[peterh]

Nice photos, thanks

[Ray Dunakin]

That railcar is awesome! It's interesting too, that the caption says it was yellow. If I had to guess from that B&W photo I would have picked a much darker color.

[Ed Morris]

The Panama Canal consists of channels, artificial lakes, and three sets of locks to raise and lower ships.  The next sequence of photographs shows the concrete work related to construction of the three sets of locks at Gatun, Pedro Miguel, and Miraflores.  Millions of cubic yards of earth were excavated for the locks, then concrete and masonry berms constructed.







Concrete plants and concrete railway cars provided the concrete for the berms:











I wish now I had kept the book!  I apologize for the lack of context and detail for some of these images.

[finescalerr]

This is more interesting than I expected. -- Russ

[Ed Morris]

The concrete plant and car would make an interesting diorama. 

[Ed Morris]

Here are two additional images I found online that provide a little more visual context to the sequence of photos posted earlier illustrating concrete work.

The first image is courtesy NBC News website, and shows a different view of one of the concrete plants.



The second image is from the Army Corps of Engineers website, and shows a crane lowering a concrete bucket, similar to those we see on the flatcars at the concrete plant, into one of the locks.

[Ed Morris]

Today I am posting images of some of the specialized equipment developed for use in the construction of the canal.  These include a track shifting machine, a rock channeler, cranes, and earth spreaders.

[Ray Dunakin]

Great stuff!

[darrylhuffman]

Much of the equipment used in building the Panama Canal was shipped to Alaska to build the Alaska Railroad.

When I moved to Anchorage in 1968, quite a bit of the old equipment was still there - stored in different sites.

I don't remember much about the equipment but I do remember seeing Fox trucks still in use under old box cars.

And I remember the truss rods under them as well.

Too poor to take photos.

I have no idea where the equipment ended up after being in Alaska.

[Ed Morris]

Including work done by the French, excavation of about 200 million cubic yards of earth was required to dig the canal.  This work was carried out primarily by steam shovels.  Over one hundred rail mounted steam shovels were used in the excavation work, and most of these were purchased from the Marion Power Shovel Company in the United States.  Here are several images of those shovels at work:





The caption for the image above seems to be in error, as the shovel shown is No. 204.

[finescalerr]

Every time I see photos of the canal or its construction I marvel at what an absolutely monumental undertaking it was. -- Russ