Panama Canal Operations in Full View

Anyone interested in going through the Panama Canal might want to have a look at the following web site www.*****.com

Go to the travel section and click on the Panama Canal box. The site has lots of pictures and a full description of the locks and canal operations.

Anyone interested in going through the Panama Canal might want to have a look at the following web site www.*****.com

Go to the travel section and click on the Panama Canal box. The site has lots of pictures and a full description of the locks and canal operations.

Absolutely amazing that one couple has done and seen so very much. Makes me feel like I need to get out and try to catch up. But, alas I shan't!

Beautiful site, and excellent information and photography.

Thanks for posting this!

From the *****.com web site: "... were controlled by the mule operators to keep the ship in the center of the lock. These modern diesel trains are specially built in China at a cost of about $250,000 each. The original mules were stream driven."

I do agree the site does have some beautiful photography, there is one huge I feel I should correct. The mules at the Panama Canal have always been powered by electricity. The original mules were built by General Electric and were powered by 220volts/25hertz (cycles). These mules as well as some carbon copies built by the Panama Canal remained in service until 1964. This is also the time when the Panama Canal was converting to 60 hertz power. One of the new features of the new mules was each mule had two cables to attach to the ships as opposed to the old mules only having one cable. This effectively reduce the number of mules needed to take a ship through the locks in half.

The new mules are built by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries in Japan. About 50 of the new mules were placed into service in the mid 60s, costing $250K per copy. The number of mules has been continously increased and are costing around $2million each.

I do agree the site does have some beautiful photography, there is one huge I feel I should correct. The mules at the Panama Canal have always been powered by electricity. The original mules were built by General Electric and were powered by 220volts/25hertz (cycles). These mules as well as some carbon copies built by the Panama Canal remained in service until 1964. This is also the time when the Panama Canal was converting to 60 hertz power. One of the new features of the new mules was each mule had two cables to attach to the ships as opposed to the old mules only having one cable. This effectively reduce the number of mules needed to take a ship through the locks in half.

The new mules are built by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries in Japan. About 50 of the new mules were placed into service in the mid 60s, costing $250K per copy. The number of mules has been continuously increased and are costing around $2million

 

If this is indeed factual, there is - on one of their pages - an e-mail address. I believe on one of the genealogy pages. They would probably appreciate this error being pointed out.

As a side note, as a child, when hearing about the "mules" I thought they meant the animal - :eek:

Good idea, thanks for pointing out their email address, I don't think I would have ever found it. I have already sent the info to them.

Thank you for pointing out the error about the mules at the Panama Canal. I don't remember where I got the erroneous information about diesel and steam driven mules.

No doubt there will be other errors in our web site (especially when it comes to genealogy) and suggestions/comments are appreciated.

Good idea, thanks for pointing out their email address, I don't think I would have ever found it. I have already sent the info to them.

You are very welcome.

I enjoyed their site so very much.

The more I looked, it seemed impossible that one couple could have done all of that.

Looking at them, though, they show the results - they are in great shape.

I bookmarked their site so that I can check in periodically to see what they are up to next!

What SailAway and BillB48 were referring to are the locomotives that pull the ships through the locks.

Here is a picture of one of them. Click below.