The Panama Canal Miraflores Locks Shipping From Atlantic To Pacific Ocean

blurMEDIA - Commercial Photographer

April 13, 2018

Share This Post!

If you’re a civil engineer and you are in Panama, of course you have to visit the Panama Canal!

Construction of the Panama Canal was completed in 1914 with a total of six locks between the Atlantic Ocean and Pacific Ocean (three locks up – three locks down).

When you’re there, looking at the landscape, it’s absolutely amazing to think that the entire Panama Canal was originally designed by the French to be a straight cut from ocean to ocean (based on their experience with the Suez Canal). From an engineering standpoint that plan seems…ambitious. I can’t even imagine how it would be done with modern machinery (and medicine), how they thought they could do it in the middle of the 19th century is beyond me!

Living in Hamilton and doing quite a bit of work with the St. Lawrence Seaway on the Welland Canal, the Panama Canal really wasn’t that impressive. Construction of the St. Lawrence Seaway was completed in 1932 and looks remarkably similar to the Panama Canal.

The Panama Canal is wider, and twinned compared to the St. Lawrence Seaway, but the locks in the St. Lawrance Seaway are much taller and much more impressive – especially in the Flight Locks on the Welland Canal which raise and lower ships 99.5 meters (326.5 ft.).