Miraflores Locks Visitors Center, Maritime museum at Panama Canal, Panama
The Miraflores Locks Visitors Center is a maritime museum and observation facility located at the Miraflores Locks of the Panama Canal in Panamá Province. From several outdoor platforms, visitors watch container ships and cargo vessels move through the lock chambers as water levels rise or drop around them.
The Panama Canal opened in 1914 after more than a decade of work on the locks and the artificial lake. The visitors center was built later to explain how the system operates and to show the public the role of the canal in world trade.
The exhibits display tools, photographs, and uniforms left behind by workers from more than 75 countries who helped dig the canal through the jungle. Visitors today walk past these objects and see how international teams worked side by side for years under difficult conditions.
The center opens every day and offers several viewing levels where visitors stand and watch ships pass. Arriving in the morning often means more ship traffic and shorter waits at the platforms.
From a glassed gallery, visitors look directly into the control tower where operators guide the electric locomotives that pull each ship safely through the locks. These small locomotives run on rails along the lock walls and are called mulas locally.
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