Supposedly that French(private company) had picked better options before they started building the canal in Panama, like perhaps they would pick more attentive and competent surveyors and better-skilled engineers and signed contract with Colombia for local labors, could have they actually finished the canal ?
WI: Succesful French Panama Canal
- Thread starter Ridwan Asher
- Start date
Bear in mind I'm not an engineer, but no, the French couldn't have completed the canal to the OTL plan. They were trying to build a sea level canal and that simply wouldn't work. The volume of material that would have to be moved is truly mind-boggling and they'd also end up cutting through a mountain range. I don't think it could be done as a sea level canal.
Put Eiffel in command at the beginning instead of Lesseps, for his OTL plans of the canal were one with locks as the Americans finally did. IOTL, this plan was adopted too late, but an early adoption would prevent wasting millions of francs; as medicine was not as advanced in the 1880s as it was IOTL when the Americans built the canal, there would be heavy losses in lives, but they would not be wasted.