Linking Oceans

Engineers during this period are performing amazing feats of calculation and perseverance. The Panama Canal is the most ambitious, creating a shortcut for the first time between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.

Teddy Roosevelt buys the unfinished canal from the French, who have given up on it after 18 years. It takes the Americans another 10 years to finish the canal, using a railroad system to remove the waste.

Meanwhile, three different sets of railroad tunnels are built under the Hudson River by 1910, linking New York for the first time with New Jersey. Two magnificent new rail terminals are added, along with an auto tunnel, by 1927.
Engineering marvels, Panama Canal, 1920s

  Dig We Must
The problem that defeated the French in their efforts to build the Panama Canal was the removal of waste. Americans complete the task by building an entire rail system, moving waste to remote dumping sites more efficiently. Meanwhile, railroads are spanning great rivers in New York and Detroit, using tubes beneath the riverbeds. New rail stations are marvels (lower right).

Railroad river tunnels, 1920s map

  Taking the Low Route
In 1900, New York has 150 ferries, mostly connecting with rail terminals on the Jersey side of the Hudson River, because that's the only way to get across. By 1910, however, there are three sets of rail tubes beneath the Hudson (see map). The distance is about a mile and a half, and the tubes have to descend 100 feet to get under the river. The tunnel built by the Pennsylvania Railroad is the most northly of the three, ending at newly-built Penn Station, near the center of the city.


Penn Station and Grand Central, 1930

  Peak of an Era
It's ironic that the great cathedrals of American railroads in New York, Penn Station and Grand Central Station, are completed just as railroads begin losing ground to automobiles as the dominant means of transportation. Majestic Penn Station (left) is headed for eventual demolition almost from the moment it opens. The above-ground structure is reduced to rubble in the 1980s, to make way for a more profitable use of real estate. Grand Central Station and Union Station have so far been spared the wrecking ball.