bcheary Loc: Jacksonville, FL

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

That was an amazing project, but it will keep the Canal working far into the future.

Bridges Loc: Memphis, Charleston SC, now Nazareth PA

Interesting story. I tried to calculate the impact of the costs of using the canal by dividing the 8500 vehicle ship into a possible 1,000,000.00 price tag and came up with a bit over 117.00 per vehicle. This isn't bad and I'm sure this cost is passed on to the consumer. I wonder if there is a savings to be gained here that would also go to the consumer, or if it just means a ship saves a week of transit and can be unloaded and reloaded faster which would only mean higher profits for the shipping company and therefore have little impact on the consumer as I would expect the freight costs to be passed along regardless of the route taken by the ship.

bcheary Loc: Jacksonville, FL

It sure will Jerry and that is why Panama is such a prosperous country.

bcheary Loc: Jacksonville, FL

Never figured it that way. I just know that the larger ships which had to go around Cape Horn can now transit the Canal at a tremendous savings in time and money.

canarywood1 Loc: Sarasota,Florida

It's complicated the way charges are made by ships transiting the canal, it was explained to us on a cruise ship as we made the transit, but to much to post here, cruise ships are charged by the number of rooms they have and a whole bunch of other things i don't even remember, our ship was 997 feet long in a lock 1000 ft. long, and we had 24 inches to spare in the beam,12 inches on each side, talk about a tight fit.

Only the larger ships are allowed to transit during daylight, smaller ships must do it at night, and there are quite a few of them at anchor all day, then are called up in the order they arrived.

Of course all of this was before the new locks were ready.

bcheary Loc: Jacksonville, FL

I have visited the Canal from the land and it was an interesting experience.