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Panama Canal Research Paper

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Abstract The Panama Canal is the most impressive engineering marvel of the 20th century. The Panama Canal led the way for all future projects by mastering the elements of engineering and construction without the proper tools or machinery. The three Chief Engineers and workers fought through seemingly impossible excavations, high costs, and disease infested mosquitoes even after losing over twenty-five thousand workers. It forced the engineers to learn to plan for all elements and conduct field sanitation, which helped set the standard for today’s operations. The engineers overcame adversity and created a new pathway for the ever expanding commercial, industrial, and strategic movements of the future by shortening voyages from East America …show more content…

The first Chief Engineer was John F. Wallace, who arrived in June of 1904 after being elected. Wallace began his work by replacing the railroad tracks with American versions, the French railroads were too narrow for American railroad cars. It took almost a year to receive American equipment. Wallace started on a ten mile stretch at the Culebra Cut, the highest and rockiest area of the canal route. It would eventually be renamed the “Gaillard Cut”, was the most difficult and challenging section due to the unstable nature of the soil (Worthington, 2014). He would go back to America to complain to President Roosevelt about the timeline being delayed. Wallace would resign in July of 1905. Due to the Commission’s lack of performance, President Roosevelt disbanded it, and hired seven new …show more content…

The canal was now under "military-discipline control" (Jones, 1990). Right away, he introduced a cost-keeping system to keep track of costs of the different materials and jobs, and increase or decrease spending accordingly (Jones, 1990). In 1908, the canal had to be changed due to a design flaw. The width of the canal had to be widened to 300 feet and the size of the locks had to be increased by fifteen feet. Goethals led the charge on finishing the “Culebra Cut”, the largest mountain in the canals path and the smallest mountain on Isthmus, by using sticks of dynamite. His workers would remove ninety six million cubic yards of dirt using massive steam shovels after loosening up the rock with

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