No. 10727 Electro-Motive F-40 PH AA Diesel Locomotive "City of Gatun," heading up a Streamlined "Heritage Fleet" Commuter Train

Panama Canal Railway Company

In May, 1879, after centuries of hit-or-miss explorations and hollow promises, little scientific knowledge, and almost no cooperation among nations, leading authorities from every part of the world, among them engineers, naval officers, economists, and explorers, gathered under one roof in Paris to seriously discuss "La Grande Entreprise," a shortcut canal to connect the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans at the Isthmus of Panama, where a route was already well established, there was a railroad, and there were thriving cities at each end (Coln and Panama City). At that meeting, a little known genius stepped forward, Baron Godin de Lpinay, a chief engineer with the French Department of Bridges and Highways. There should be no sea-level canal, as had been proposed and was the case at Suez (opened in 1869). Instead, he suggested a "most natural method" - the Chagres River would be bridged, not by a stone viaduct, but by a bridge of water across most of the Isthmus. There would be two artificial lakes with flights of locks, like stairs, leading up to the lakes from the two oceans. His lakes would be created by building two huge dams, one at the Chagres near the Atlantic, the other on the Rio Grande, which flows into the Pacific. The Chagres dam, the largest, should be built at the confluence of the Chagres and Gatun Rivers, at a point called Gatun, and it would hold the largest of the lakes. The surface of the lakes would be 80 feet above sea level, fed by seasonal rains, providing an unlimited water supply for the canal through the connecting river and eliminating the danger of traditional Chagres floods, since the river would feed directly into the lakes. The resulting passage then would be a broad lake, rather than a narrow channel, allowing ships to move at greater speeds and to pass each other en route, unlike the constricted Suez. Passage through such a canal was predicted to be no more than 12 hours. Such a project could be completed in six years, it was estimated, and would require the cost of buying the Panama Railroad, already in place (since 1855). Under the leadership of French diplomat Ferdinand de Lesseps, the French engineers and local laborers started work in 1881 at the Isthmus of Panama, but suffered many reverses, and ran out of money in 1889. That ended the French era of attempted sea-level canal construction, resulting in a far-reaching scandal in France, known as the Panama Affair, bringing down the French government in 1892. The extraordinary venture had cost $287 million, about three times the cost of the Suez Canal, and taken at least 20,000 lives. The failure resulted in corporate bankruptcy of overwhelming magnitude, based essentially on ignoring Baron de Lpinay's recommendations in 1879 of creating two artificial lakes high above sea level, complemented by two massive dams at either end to contain the lakes and supply the power through the lakes to operate the dam's locks. The de Lesseps sea-level Panama Canal plan simply had no chance of succeeding under any circumstances. But it can also be said that nothing whatever would have been attempted or accomplished at Panama had it not been for Ferdinand de Lesseps. His Campagnie Universelle Canal Company had built hospitals, offices, storehouses, dock facilities, living quarters, and machine shops (2,000 buildings). The maps, plans, surveys, and hydrographic data had been assembled and the Panama Railroad acquired, along with some 30,000 acres of land. And a great deal of excavation had been done along the canal route, an amount equivalent to one-third of the total at the 105-mile Suez. A commission appointed by the liquidator to appraise the work reported that the amount accomplished was "considerable" and that the plant was "in a good state of preservation"; the lock canal could be completed "in about eight years."

Theodore Roosevelt became President of the United States in September, 1901, when William McKinley was shot at an exposition in Buffalo, New York, marking a dramatic shift in Presidential style and attitude. Theodore Roosevelt was seen as someone who "could make things happen," and a Central American canal to rival Suez was very much on his mind. In fact, the Panama Canal project would become the great passion of his Administration. In Theodore Roosevelt's view, the canal was to be the first step to American supremacy at sea, the commanding power on two oceans via a canal built, owned, operated, policed, and fortified by the United States.

         In 1902, the United States bought the entire Panama property from the Compagnie Nouvelle, successor to the bankrupt Compagnie Universelle, for $40 million, including the Panama Railroad, which the Compagnie Universelle had purchased in 1881. The Republic of Panama was established as an independent country, and recognized as such by the United States, in 1903, setting the stage for Theodore Roosevelt's realization of his dream.

         Work on the 50-mile canal corridor commenced in 1904. There were yellow fever and malaria to contend with, diseases that had plagued the French, and funeral processions were continually passing through the streets. There were also fatal cases of bubonic plague, smallpox, pneumonia, tuberculosis, and dysentery.

         In 1905, a railroad man, John Stevens, was chosen to be chief engineer to build the Panama Canal. Stevens had worked as chief engineer and general manger for James J. Hill (the "Empire Builder") and his Great Northern Railroad - Stevens built bridges, tunnels, and more than 1,000 miles of railroad from Montana to the Pacific Ocean in the 1890s, as much as had been built by any one man in the world.

         Stevens brought order and sanitation to the project immediately. Disease control took a year and a half; meanwhile the Railroad Era was ushered in at the canal site, with military precision. Stevens saw the project as a railroading challenge, and he recruited railroad men only.

         Stevens saw at once, as the French had not, that the Panama Railroad was the lifeline along which not only men, food, supplies, and everything else needed to sustain the work would have to move freely and efficiently, but the excavation dirt trains as well. So within a year the rail line was completely overhauled and double-tracked with heavier rails, with new orders placed for freight cars and more than 100 locomotives. By the end of 1906 there were nearly 24,000 men at work, more than ever before, the labor force coming from every part of the world - 97 countries, but, like with the French effort, the unskilled pick-and-shovel workers were nearly all black men, from Barbados this time rather than Jamaica, labor source for the French.

         In 1906, the Isthmian Canal Commission in Washington (established in 1904) gave its official approval to the lock canal concept for Panama, backed by Theodore Roosevelt and John Stevens. The elevation of Gatun Lake would be 85 feet. At Gatun there would be a single flight of three locks (Gatun Locks) built into the eastern end of Gatun Dam. A ship entering the locks would be lifted to the level of the lake, then proceed 23 miles across the lake, south to Culebra Cut, which, like the neck of a bottle, extended for nine miles through the mountainous Continental Divide, capped by another small dam and one lock at Pedro Miguel. There the ship would be lowered 31 feet to Miraflores Lake, moving across that lake to the Miraflores Locks, descending there through two more locks, placing the ship at sea level once again and completing the ocean- to-ocean transit. There would be no more talk of a sea-level canal, more expensive, more time- consuming, and less efficient than the lock canal. And with this decision the village at Gatun would be given a revived life as a large and thriving new town in preparation for the Gatun Dam construction, relocated, as the village stood at the dam site. Gatun Lake, created by Gatun Dam, would become the largest artificial lake in the world, covering 164 square miles of jungle. A new 40-plus mile railroad would have to be built on higher ground to skirt the eastern shore of the new lake.

         Then, in 1907, John Stevens resigned as chief engineer of the canal, to be replaced by an Army man, Lieutenant Colonel George Goethals (West Point, 1880), whose career was in the Corps of Engineers and who had worked on canals and locks in the United States. Now, there were 32,000 people on the payroll, upped to nearly 40,000 by 1910.

         For seven years Culebra Cut was never silent - on a typical day there would be more than 300 rock drills in use, complemented in noise by more than 60 steam shovels, dirt and supply trains, and dynamite blasting, to create a man-made canyon 1,800 feet wide at the top, 300 feet at the canal water level, and nine miles long. Six thousand men worked around the clock every day except Sunday.

         The full workforce in the last years of construction numbered close to 50,000, nearly equal to the combined populations of Coln and Panama City.

         Gatun Lake began its rise with the closing of the West Diversion Channel in 1910, when Gatun Dam was still incomplete, with the Chagres River spreading inland mile by mile, becoming a large body of fresh water suspended in the jungle. Then, in the closing years of the canal project (1909-1914), the great locks took form for all to see, the most interesting and important construction feats of the entire effort. In their overall dimensions, mass, weight, in the mechanisms and ingenious control apparatus incorporated in their design, they surpassed any similar structures in the world. They were made of concrete with literally thousands of moving parts manufactured in Pittsburgh, Wheeling, Schenectady, and other American cities.

         To build all the locks took four years, from the time the first concrete was laid on the canal floor at Gatun in August, 1909. The walls, 1,000 feet long, rose to 81 feet, higher than a six-story building. The massive gates at the ends could swing open like double doors and closed in the form of a flattened "V." The leaves of the gates weighed many hundreds of tons apiece and were the largest ever erected. Construction of the gates began at Gatun in May, 1911. They were designed to be hollow and watertight so that they would actually float once there was water in the locks, reducing the hinge load considerably. The leaves were all a standard 65 feet wide and 7 feet thick, varying in height from 47 to 82 feet, depending on their position. The highest and heaviest weighed 745 tons. The complete system consisted of 46 gates (92 leaves), including main and intermediate gates (a safety precaution). The lock chambers all had the same dimensions, 110 by 1,000 feet, and they were built in pairs, two chambers running side by side to accommodate two lanes of traffic. There were six pairs of lock chambers in all, three at Gatun, one at Pedro Miguel, and two at Miraflores. The locks, once in use, would never be less than half full of water.

         The fundamental element in operating the locks is water from the elevated Gatun and Miraflores Lakes, which can raise or lower the level of water in the locks simply by the force of gravity. The flows into the locks are from above the lakes, and out of the locks the flows are into the sea-level channels to the oceans. Water is admitted to or released from the locks by giant tunnels with valves to control the water flow. A ship can be raised or lowered in a chamber in about 15 minutes. Ships make their way through the locks using towing locomotives two forward, pulling, and two aft to steady them.

         The American steamer "Ancon" opened transit through the Panama Canal on August 15, 1914, and thousands of construction workers were jobless. Towns like Gatun were deserted and disappeared. A new era was at hand.

         So let's summarize what happened between 1855, when the Panama Railroad commenced operations coast to coast, and 1914, when the Panama Canal opened (the railroad was built by Americans 1850-1855, starting at Coln). Before 1855 (the California Gold Rush took place 1848-1853, see No. 10313) passage through the Isthmus of Panama, about 50 miles from the Atlantic to the Pacific Oceans, required an arduous trip by canoe and on foot, with exposure to diseases, of about five days. But, on a trip from New York to San Francisco, it saved 8,000 miles by eliminating the need to go around the southern tip of South America (Cape Horn). A stormy trip around the Horn took over six months, while using the mosquito plagued Panama shortcut shaved a month off that total. That was about the same as a dangerous overland trip across the United States, until the Union Pacific and Central Pacific railroads met at Promontory, Utah, in May, 1869, establishing a transcontinental railway in the United States from New York to California for the first time.

         When the Panama Railroad started operating coast to coast in 1855, the trip between the oceans was reduced to from three to six hours, but there were still yellow fever and malaria to contend with.

         It was about an 11-hour trip by ship between the oceans after the Panama Canal opened in 1914, with no hazards. It is about the same today.

         Under canal ownership after 1912, the rail line was used to move canal equipment and hosted passenger trains that carried canal workers and their families (after the canal's opening in 1914). Ownership of the railroad was transferred from the United States to the government of Panama in 1979, a stipulation of the Panama Canal Treaty. Falling into disrepair and plagued by mismanagement under operation by Panama's military in the 1980s, the line was nearly reclaimed by the jungle, offering only a skeleton service.

         In 1998, Kansas City Southern Industries (a Missouri-based railway holding company) and intermodal equipment builder Mi-Jack Products (Hazelcrest, Illinois) were awarded by the government of Panama a 25-year concession to rebuild and operate the 47.6-mile railroad. The two partners formed the Panama Canal Railway Company, investing $75 million in the project.

         Reconstruction of the single-track line began in February, 2000, which included converting the tracks from 5-foot gauge to American standard gauge (4 feet 8 ½inches). The Panama Canal Railway Company (PCRC) began executive passenger service in July, 2001, marketed to commuting customers who live and work in Panama City and Coln. Passengers can purchase monthly tickets for an assigned seat or group of seats, which helps the on-board staff members provide consistent service by getting to know their clientele. Drinks are served from airline-style trolleys, which match the decor of the railway's refurbished Amtrak "Heritage" coaches. As one of the staff recently explained, "With fifty people in each coach and only a fifty-minute commute, we have only one minute to serve each customer. There is not time to take orders, go to the bar, prepare drinks, and serve them. If we know what each customer wants beforehand, we can serve everyone right!" Presently, there are two northbound commuter trains leaving Corozal (northwest of Panama City) at 7 a.m. and 7:30 a.m., bound for Cristbal (just south of Coln). The two trainsets combine for one evening southbound run back to Corozal. A second shipment of passenger cars was delivered in 2002 to provide more extensive passenger service, particularly tourist trains during the October-May cruise ship season. The cruise ship business in Panama has been growing - 65 ships called at the Atlantic port of Cristbal 2001-2002, up from 36 in 2000-2001.

         The PCRC also is running up to 20 container freight trains a day, ten each way, each train with six articulated five-well double-stack cars, making the coast-to-coast transshipment run in just under 90 minutes. This service accommodates cargo ships too large for the canal, as a lower-cost alternative to trucks. The PCRC transports 75,000 containers a year.

         Motive power presently consists of five former Amtrak Electro-Motive F-40 PH diesel locomotives, including No. 1858 "City of Gatun" (Amtrak No. 358), subject of this history, leased by PCRC early in 2001 from Amtrak. Repainted in an attractive red, yellow, and black color scheme reminiscent of Kansas City Southern Railroad's flagship passenger train of the 1950s, the "Southern Belle" (see No. 10205), the five locomotives, along with a number of executive passenger coaches, were unloaded in Cristbal in April, 2001, after a short sea voyage from New Orleans.

         The F-40 PH is a streamlined "cowl design" 16-cylinder diesel locomotive by General Motors Electro-Motive Division, developing 3000 horsepower, manufactured for American light freight and passenger service 1976-1985. This versatile workhorse has proven ideal for short-haul freight and commuter passenger operations.

         The passenger cars that became known as the "Heritage Fleet" were recycled from a variety of cars from existing railroads when Amtrak took over passenger operations nationally in the United States in 1971, repainted in Amtrak's newly designed red, white, and blue paint scheme. The "Heritage Fleet" was replaced in 1988 by Amtrak with all-new more modern looking Bombadier-built cars, known as "Horizon" cars.

         No.10727 represents an accurate scale model of Panama Canal Railway's Electro-Motive F-40 PH diesel locomotive "City of Gatun," heading up a "Heritage Fleet" commuting train of 7 cars (Nos. 10514 and 10515) on its current run between Cristbal and Corozal in Panama, with service having commenced in July, 2001. The train is in "0"gauge by MTH.