Passage II

SOCIAL SCIENCE: This passage is adapted from the book Brave Companions: Portraits In History by David McCullough (©1992 by David McCullough).

It was not long after the completion of the Panama Railroad in 1855 that Bedford Clapperton Pim declared with perfect composure that of all the world's wonders none could surpass this one as a demonstration of man's capacity to do great things against impossible odds.

"I have seen the greatest engineering works of the day," he wrote, " ... but I must confess that when pass­ing backwards and forwards on the Panama Railway, I have never been more struck than with the evidence, apparent on every side, of the wonderful skill, endurance, and perseverance, which must have been exercised in its construction."

Bedford Clappcrcon Pim was a British naval officer and of no particular historical significance. He had, however, seen a great deal of the world, he was a recog­nized authority on CentraI America, and his opinion was not lightly arrived at.

It should be kept in mind that the first railroads, all very primitive, had been built in Europe and the United States only some twenty years before. France was still virtually without railroads; not a rail had been put down west of the Mississippi as yet. Moreover, such awesome technological strides as the Suez Canal, the Union Pacific, and the Brooklyn Bridge were still well in the future. And so the vision of locomotives highballing through the green half-light of some distant rain forest, of the world's two greatest oceans joined by good English-made rails, could stir the blood to an exceptional degree.

The Panama Railroad was begun in 1850, at the height of the California gold craze. And by anyone's standards it was a stunning demonstration of man’s "wonderful skill, endurance, and perseverance," just as Pim said, even though its full length was only forty-seven and a half miles. It was, for example, the first ocean-to-ocean railroad. Mile for mile it also appears to have cost more in dollars and in human life than any railroad ever built.

The surveys made by its builders produced important geographic revelations that had a direct bearing on the decision to build a Panama canal along the same route. In addition, the diplomatic agreement upon which the whole venture rested, the so-called Bidlack Treaty of 1846, was the basis of all subsequent involve­ment of the United States in Panama.

Still, the simple fact that it was built remains the overriding wonder, given the astonishing difficulties that had to be overcome and the means at hand in the 1850s. Present-day engineers who have had experience in jungle construction wonder how in the world it was ever managed. I think in particular of David S. Parker, an eminent army engineer whom I interviewed at the time he was governor of the Canal Zone. Through a great sweep of glass behind him, as we talked, were the distant hills of Panama, no different in appearance than they ever were. It is almost inconceivable, be said, that the railroad survey—just the survey一could have been made by a comparative handful of men who had no proper equipment for topographic reconnaissance (no helicopters, no recourse to aerial photography), no modern medicines, nor the least understanding of the causes of malaria or yellow fever. There was no such thing as an insect repellent, no bulldozers, no chain saws, no canned goods, not one reliable map.

A Panama railroad still crosses from the Atlantic to the Pacific, from Colon to Panama City. Much of the ride一especially if you are in one of the older cars (without air conditioning, windows open wide)—looks and feels as it must have originally. The full trip rakes one hour and thirty minutes. But except for a few miles at either end, the present line is altogether different from the original. It takes a differer route on higher ground. The old road has vanished beneath Gatun Lake, the enormous body of fresh water that comprises most of the canal and that can be seen close by on the right much of the way as you head toward the Pacific.

The original line was built as hurriedly and cheaply as circumstances would allow, to take advantage of the bonanza in California traffic. The route was always along the line of least resistance. Anything for­midable in the way—a hill, a bend in the Chagres River一was bypassed if possible. No tunnels were attempted (there is one on the present line), and the winding right of way chopped through the jungle was just wide enough to let a train pass. Still, this one little stretch of track took nearly five years to build and cost $8 million, which averages out to a little less than ten miles a year and a then unheard-of $168,000 per mile.