Afro-Panamanian
In 1904 when the construction of the Panama Canal was taken over by the United States for the failure of the French company, will again resort to the West Indian worker. Although between 1904 and 1914 the vast majority of Afro-West Indians who arrived in Panama did a one-year contract with the idea of returning to their home islands once the offshore project, after construction of the canal many Afro-Antillean stayed in Panama. Afro-West Indians who remained in Panama many got jobs in the Canal Zone and became the largest immigrant group in Panama. On the subject of Afro-Antillean Panama, Leslie B. Rout said that when the canal was opened in 1914, some 20,000 African-West Indians remained in Panama.
Virginia Port Authority
In 2014, the Panama Canal expansion project is due to be completed. A 15-year-long project, it will double the canal's capacity and allow it to carry the bigger container vessels and bulk ships which have become favored by the shipping lines since the canal first opened in 1914. Such larger craft currently cannot use the port. Instead, much of the shipping container traffic currently uses West Coast ports such as Los Angeles and Long Beach, California. The containers then travel overland via either railroad or by trucking. By coming through the widened Panama Canal to the Gulf of Mexico and sailing on to East Coast ports, these vessels will be able to reduce shipping time and expense to reach major U.S. markets along the Mississippi River basin and the points east of there. Much of such rail traffic now changes at "gateway" railhead cities such as Chicago and St. Louis, from western class 1 railroads such as Union Pacific and Burlington Northern Sante Fe Railway (BNSF) to other railroads.