Logistically, it makes little difference if ship 1 takes people or lots of different goods to Port A, it gets hauled or railroaded overland to Port B and put on a different ship. It's only when bulk carriers are considered, and the transit of major capital ships that it really matters, and this is also tied in with when sea transit becomes a lot swifter - i.e. taking several days to transfer is nothing if the total journey is a couple of months, but when it can be cut down to a couple of weeks then adding on several days suddenly becomes uneconomical.

Transshipping is not nearly as easy or convenient as you make it sound, especially before containerization and/or railroads. A ship must be unloaded by hand, its goods repacked onto mules or whatever (even if some of the trip is on rafts, you'll need mules at some point to cross the Continental Divide) - and a lot of them, as each mule carries <100kg, and even a clipper ship, where speed is most important and carrying relatively little cargo, carried ~1000-2000 tons = 10,000-20,000 mule-loads. And then repacking them on the other side. The route 'round Cape Horn is about 7,000 nautical miles = 24 days at 12 knots (not an unreasonable speed for a cargo ship in the broad period from 1700-1900) - and a clipper ship could take it in half the time. If it takes, say, 3 days on either end to load and unload the ship, and 6 days for the mule train, it no longer makes sense for clippers, and makes questionable sense for others - especially once you take into account the cost of loading, unloading, and guiding the train (plus, presumably bandits!).

A canal also allows the swift movement of warships - that's why the US was interested in it, by the way: before Panama, the Atlantic and Pacific Fleets were basically completely independent because it would take over a month for either to reach the other.

EDIT: By the way, in the modern day transshipping makes much more sense. Railroads and containerization probably reduce the time to about 1-2 days, which is actually competitive with transiting the Panama Canal (10 hours to transit, plus time navigating in and out, and waiting your turn). But you'd need two giant container ports and a big-ass railway (though I like the idea of the railway basically operating in a continuous loop :D )
 
Around the time Suez was built is my guess.

- BNC
The Suez Canal is a sea-level canal requiring no locks. The Panama Canal requires either HUGE cuts through literal MOUNTAINS to make sea-level or a lot of locks. So, no, the two are not even close in being the same technology or sophistication and the time for one has no bearing on the other.
 
Transit of major capital ships. Warships that is. Exactly.

Unless one can wank Central America itself into a pretty major bioceanic power, or have it integrally incorporated within a larger state that is such a thing or more, with interests specifically on the Pacific and Atlantic, the canal zones are the targets of scheming great powers from outside the region, and the ones who lose out will tend to block any who gain ascendency.

Bearing in mind Minchandre has a major point that overland transshipment over the various isthmuses, all of which enjoyed schemes to exploit them other than canals, was such a bottleneck that the hard work of digging a canal might seem surprisingly worthwhile until we face the major costs, delays and liabilities of overland shipping still I would think that the kind of capital involved in digging any of the possible canals could alternately be employed much improving the overland options. Innovations in cargo handling, such as modern containerization, could be spurred precisely by the exigencies of this situation, and railroads are the obvious mid to late 19th century alternate--indeed an ambitious scheme to develop a heavy 4 track RR across Tehuenepec was proposed, that would be capable of hauling entire ships on dolly cars on the two tracks per direction! This Hugo Gernsbackian scheme never came to pass of course. That isthmus had a peak altitude of some 250 meters on the ridge, so one can see how such a heavily laden RR might at least be considered, since the distance was about 200 km so the grade would be quite low. It was the northern swampy part of the route that proved most difficult to develop, on the Gulf of Mexico side. But an early development of containerized shipping could do much to reduce the economic aspects of the pressure for a canal, and speed up the time loss considerably.

But entities with the capital to invest were also associated with ambitious nation-states with the capital ships they wanted to transfer, so the solution of a canal would always have that much more favor I think.
 
With containerization and a railroad cargo can get across, but what about warships? I can imagine Britain or a wannabe naval rival of GB building it to get a major advantage since they can get through the canal and enemies have to go around.
 
With containerization and a railroad cargo can get across, but what about warships? I can imagine Britain or a wannabe naval rival of GB building it to get a major advantage since they can get through the canal and enemies have to go around.
That means the US and France. No other nation until Japan is going to need a canal for a warship in Panama. Other than the Central American nations and Columbia who would need it so they don't have to duplicate resources just because of two seas. Maybe a Gran Columbia or Central American Republic could MAYBE afford it with help from a larger nation.
 
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