Engineering Wonders of the World
Volume I

148 _______ ENGINEERING WONDERS OF THE WORLD. alone relied upon. A further great economy of time and labour in this department has been effected by the mechanical track-thrower, the invention of a former general manager of the Panama Railroad. This machine, handled by three white and six coloured men, is capable of shifting 5,400 feet of track 9 feet sideways in eight hours. Under the old method, between five hundred and six hundred men would have been kept busy on this job. In estimating the magnitude of the work in the Culebra Cut one must remember that the French excavation varied in width from 50 to 200 feet, and that this cutting is being widened everywhere to from 500 to 1,000 feet. Thus it happens that, though they have re- moved more than 30,000,000 cubic yards of material, the Americans have still in many places not dug below the level reached by the French. Moreover, the French left at each end of the cutting two barriers, 80 feet high, which their successors had to clear away before they could lay tracks on which to haul spoil to the dumping grounds. It should be noted that the Canal and the sanitation of the region through which it passes will not be the only engineering achieve- ments in the Isthmus to be New Panama credited to the United States. Railway. gjnce it passed under the Amer- ican flag, the main line of the Panama Rail- road has been relaid for three-fourths of its length, double-tracked with American 70-lb. steel, and otherwise brought up to date. The completion of the . Canal will, however, neces- sitate the abandonment of practically the entire length of the existing main line and the construction of a new railway, located wholly on the east side of the waterway. The build- ing of this line, now rapidly proceeding, in- volves the bridging of several rivers and the excavation, near Miraflores, of the first rail- way tunnel in the Isthmus. It was assumed by the authors of the pro- ject approved by Congress in June 1906 that the mere completion of the Canal would cost, in round figures, £28,800,000. This estimate, however, made Huge Cort ot the Canal. no allowance for expenses of Zone government and sanitation, municipal improvements in Panama and Colon, the re- equipment and rebuilding of the railway, and the purchase of railroad stock which, at the time of the transfer of the property, was held by private individuals. In December 1908 the Canal Commission prepared a very com- plete and detailed statement of past expendi- ture and of the work still before it, and arrived at the conclusions that the Canal might be completed and opened to navigation in the early days of 1915, and that the total cost of the enterprise to the United States up to that time would be £77,362,000—roughly speaking, about as much again as had then been spent. This estimate, it is interesting to note, includes the payments to the French Canal Company and Republic of Panama, loans to the Pa- nama Railroad, and disbursements for water- works and other improvements in the cities of Panama and Colon. The loans and amounts expended on the Panamese cities aggregate £310,000, and are, of course, repayable to the United States Treasury. Other items making up the grand total are :— Excavation, etc., in the Central division.......£18,239,000 Limon Bay Breakwater...................... 2,357,000 Gatun Locks........................................................ 5,325,000 Gatun Dam................................ 2,800,000 Dredging, excavation, etc., Atlantic division .... 3,656,000 Excavation, dredging, dams, etc., Pacific division. 9,895,000 Sanitation.................................. 4,134,000 Construction and repair of buildings........... 3,000,000 Civil administration.......................... 1,522,000 New Panama Railroad.............,...................... 1,700,000 Such an expenditure of national resources upon a single peaceful undertaking—not dic- tated solely or mainly by stra- tegic or political considerations, or thought of eventual profit —is, and probably will remain for all time, unparalleled in the annals of mankind. If the