Two Transoceanic Canals

Left leaning Panamian goverment combined with victorious Contras asking President Reagan for aid?

Building bigger to accomidate larger tankers, (and aircraft carriers).;)
 
Hmm... Let's say that the Nicaragua Canal that was planned gets built partially, but the plan gets shot down after quite a few deaths or something. Then the Panama Canal gets built as per OTL. Several decades later, someone in Nicaragua decides that they need to finish their canal. So with help from Mexico, several South Amnerican countries, and maybe even some European countries, Nicaragua completes their canal.

Or simply huge volumes of transoceanic traffic, maybe if Europe stays peaceful somehow an starts trading heavily with America and East Asia. The Suez does not get built, for some reason or another. Then, all the traffic goes by the Panama route. Dunno why. But the huge volume of traffic leads most to believe that another canal is needed. So the Nicaraguan Canal is built.
 
It still could happen, when Panamax is reached, Nicaragua capitalizes on it, and builds its own canal.
 
Well, perhaps a successful Mexican Empire (all the way down to Panama, but not including Panama) that is competing with a successful Greater Venezuela/Colombia/whatever it was called... Grand Colombia? (I forgot). Like a a Great Game/Cold War-esque tension thingy. One starts building a canal, the other sees that and builds it's own canal.
 
Well, perhaps a successful Mexican Empire (all the way down to Panama, but not including Panama) that is competing with a successful Greater Venezuela/Colombia/whatever it was called... Grand Colombia? (I forgot). Like a a Great Game/Cold War-esque tension thingy. One starts building a canal, the other sees that and builds it's own canal.
Grán Colombia, if the accent isn't wrong. Grand Colombia would be a possible translation of the name, of course.

Hm, maybe we can get the British involved in making a channel, as some kind of friendly-ish competition to the US-supported one?
 
Grán Colombia, if the accent isn't wrong. Grand Colombia would be a possible translation of the name, of course.

Hm, maybe we can get the British involved in making a channel, as some kind of friendly-ish competition to the US-supported one?
Smashing. This Greater Mexico gets the British support aginst America, while Colombia gets American support. :)
 
Is this thread here because of Mosaic Earth 15?

Or how about Panama goes isolationist and the world needs a new canal?

Although it would probably be easier to just take out the Panamanian government...
 

ninebucks

Banned
The Soviets could build one in Nicaragua if they manage to control the country.

I don't see why they'd need to control Nicaragua in order to donate billions of dollars of resources, labour and expertise to a government in order to build them an amazingly profitable income generator.
 
This is actually becoming increasingly likely IOTL.
With depleting oil reserves and concerns over global warming there is being a bit of a move back towards seaborne transport- something that could get bigger with all these designs for 'eternal ships' and that sort of thing.
The Nicaraguan government even today is seriously discussing this quite a bit.

For it to happen in pre 1900...It really would have to be politics, it wouldn't make much economic sense.
Maybe the US or the UK have a contest to build the canal with a truly huge prize two major companies start up doing it- one in Nicaragua and one in Panama. Both are succesful.
 

Vivisfugue

Banned
Maybe you could have this in a "Confederacy wins" timeline, with a US-built canal in Panama competing with a European-financed and Confederate-built canal in Nicaragua. Neither country would want the other to be able to shift naval forces from ocean to ocean faster than the other, though the Confederacy would have had to have won a whopping great victory in the Civil war for the Pacific to matter to them much.
 
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