Two Big Coming Stations At Panama.

New York Times 100 years ago today, March 30, 1913:
Together They Will Have Capacity for Nearly Half a Million Tons — One at Cristobal.
WAR SUPPLY UNDER WATER
This Always to be Kept in Reserve — Specifications for Plants Make Time Saving a First Consideration.
    A most elaborate system of ship coaling plants, to be established at the Atlantic and Pacific entrances to the Panama Canal, is described by the Canal Commission in a recent issue of The Consular and Trade Reports. Specifications for the necessary machinery, the first aim of which is speed in handling the coal with the least possible amount of breakage, have been completed, and advertisements will shortly be published for bids.
    It is planned, the Canal Commission explains, to have a coal storage basin at Cristobal with a capacity of 290,000 tons, and one at Balboa with a capacity of 160,000 tons. In each place the storage will be within a large basin made of reinforced concrete, in which approximately half the coal will be stored under water for use in time of war, and the other half above water to be added to and taken from continually for the ordinary uses of commercial and Government vessels.
    "It is also planned," continues the commission's statement, "if the policy should be approved, to be able to lease parts of the storage basin to such private coaling companies as may wish to maintain their own coal stores on the Isthmus; but in such cases all of the handling will be done by the Government plant, a suitable charge being made for the service.
    "The specifications are not hard and fast, but merely establish certain general methods and standards, leaving it to manufacturers to devise suitable machines. One of the limiting conditions is that the Government shall build the substructure or storage bin and place upon the walls such tracks as cranes and other movable machines may require. This substructure will cost more than the coal-handling plant. The details will not be decided upon until the bids for the handling plant have been canvassed, because each plan will require its own special substructure, and one of the points, considered in awarding the contract will be the cost of the substructure required under each plan.
    "In general, however, the specifications call for cranes that will unload coal from ships; a conveying system that will transfer it to bridges that will span the storage basin and dump it at any place desired; and such a system of buckets operating upon these bridges as will make it possible to lift coal from the storage basin, and by means of conveyors raise it to loading machines that will dump it into colliers or lighters. The Cristobal plant must be capable of unloading 1,000 tons and loading 2,000 tons of coal each hour, end the Balboa plant 500 and 1,000 tons.
    "In the ordinary operations of each of the plants vessels requiring bunker coal will not go alongside the wharves of the plants to receive such coal, but will be coaled while lying in the stream from barges laid alongside, these barges having been loaded by means of the reloaders forming part of the specified handling machinery for each plant. The plants are to be capable, however, of rapidly loading colliers laid alongside the wharves by means of the reloaders mentioned, the high capacities specified for outward-bound coal being fixed with a view to requiring colliers to remain at the plants for the shortest time practicable.

Layouts of the Plants.
    "The coaling plant at the Atlantic entrance will be situated on the north end of the island formed by the old French canal, the American canal, and the Mindi River. It will be reached from the mainland by means of a bridge to be built by the Panama Railroad over the French canal south of the drydock shops. The storage basin will be opposite dock No. 13 at Mount Hope, and it will be 1,000 feet long and 250 feet wide. The bottom of the basin will be nineteen feet below mean tide, and the elevation of the decks of the wharves ten feet above mean tide. There will be forty-one feet depth of water alongside the wharves. The wharves will be founded upon steel cylinders filled with reinforced concrete resting upon hard rock. The maximum tidal oscillation in Limon Bay is 2.65 feet.
    "For this type of storage basin, at least two layouts of coaling plant are feasible; the first being that in which the loading and unloading wharves occupy opposite sides of the basin parallel with one another with the coal piles between them, and the second that in which the unloading wharf will be at right angles to the loading wharf. The normal capacity will be 240,000 tons, capable of increase to 290,000 tons by piling coal to ten feet additional height.
    "The coaling plant at the Pacific entrance will be on the quay wall south of the entrance to the large dry dock. The size of the basin will be 500 feet long and 250 feet wide for one design of plant, and the same length and 340 feet wide for a second design. The extreme tidal difference here is 21.8 feet. As at the Atlantic entrance, the loading wharf will be founded upon concrete cylinders resting upon hard rock; the unloading wharf will be gravity section concrete wall resting on rock. The normal capacity of the Balboa plant will be 135,000 tons, capable of increase to 160,000 tons, by piling coal ten feet above normal height.
    The layout is somewhat different from that at the Atlantic entrance, although the method of handling the coal will be similar. The unloading wharf will be situated at the outer end of the dry dock slip, while the line of the loading wharf makes an angle of about 45 degrees with that of the unloading wharf, runing out toward the canal prism from the end of the unloading wharf.
    "In the first plan a basin 500 feet long and 250 feet wide is provided for, with bottom at eighteen feet below mean tide and top of wharf at sixteen and a half feet above mean tide. The capacity of this plant must not be less than 500 tons of coal an hour to be unloaded and 1,000 tons per hour to be loaded aboard colliers or barges. Two unloaders will be required with conveyors, and two single stocking reclaiming bridges. Two reloaders will also be required. The operation of this plant is essentially the same as that for the Atlantic entrance.

Great Unloading Towers.
    "An alternate plan for the Balboa plant provides for the same location of the wharves, but for a basin 500 feet long and 340 feet wide. Tho unloaders are the same as in other plans, but instead of dumping into conveyers they will discharge by means of the cantilever end directly into the basin, and large cantilever cranes will then pick up the coal and deposit it at any desired point in the storage basin. For reclaiming, these same cranes will pick up the coal and trolley it into their towers, where it will be dumped into cars or other conveyers, whence it will be carried away from the basin along the front of the reloading wharf to the reloaders.
    "The purpose of this second plan is to make use of four cranes now used in the placing of concrete at Miraflores locks and thus save the expense of the stocking and reclaiming bridges. Whether they will be used depends upon the cost and general desirability of this plant compared with one having entirely new handling machinery."
    The commission has this to say more particularly about the Cristobal plant:
    "The unloading operation will consist of taking coal from a collier and depositing it at any desired place in the bin or basin. For this purpose unloading towers, a conveying system that will carry the coal lengthwise of the storage bin along the wharf, bridges spanning the basin, and a conveying system upon these bridges, which will take the coal from the first conveyers and dump it wherever required, are specified.
    "Four unloading towers of not less than 250 tons capacity per hour each making a total capacity of 1,000 tons an hour, form the first unit of the unloading system. These towers must be capable of mining coal from a vessel depositing it into a hopper built within the tower, whence it may be delivered by chutes to the conveying system, or to Panama Railroad cars running on a track beneath the tower: or of depositing it by the bucket or shovel into the storage pile behind the tower; and of mining coal from storage pile behind the tower and depositing it in the hopper in the tower.
    "Each tower will travel on two parallel pairs of rails between which, at the level of the wharf deck, there shall run a railroad track so located that cars may be run beneath the unloading tower and receive coal from its hopper. The speed of travel in either direction must be not less than fifty feet per minute against a wind pressure of ten pounds per square foot. The track travel must be by motors or engines within each tower, and cable drive will not be acceptable.
    "The bucket or shovel by means of the colliers will have a capacity of 100 cubic feet, liquid full. Larger buckets may be offered, however, provided small buckets are also supplied and a rapid means of making the change from one to the other is provided.
    "Each tower will be. fitted with a lifting or folding boom on the water side and with a cantilever on the storage basin side. The cantilever may be movable if necessary to permit the passage of the reclaiming bridges. In any case the track for the trolley of the bucket shall be horizontal and continuous, between the extreme ends of boom and cantilever, when both are in a horizontal position, and the passage of the trolley over the hinge joints shall be made easily and without shock. Suitable buffers will be fitted at each end of the trolley runway. The distances through which the trolley or bucket will be capable of operation are as follows: Maximum height above wharf level, Balboa and Cristobal, 60 feet; maximum depth for reclaiming coal from ships below wharf level, Cristobal, 30 feet; Balboa, 45 feet; maximum horizontal travel of bucket on water side beyond centre line of tower legs next to water, Cristobal and Balboa, 60 feet; maximum horizontal travel of bucket on land side, beyond nearest wall of coal basin, Cristobal and Balboa, 35 feet; maximum depth below wharf level for reclaiming coal from storage on land side at Cristobal, 20 feet; maximum depth below wharf level for reclaiming coal from storage on land side at Balboa 34 1/2 feet.
    "In addition to these operations the towers will be able to dredge the bottom of the slip in front of the unloading wharf 51 feet below wharf level at Cristobal and 61 1/2 feet at Balboa."