Used to watch the ships pass in the Canal all the time...all kinds; like replicas of Sir Francis Drake's ship, the Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria, USN ships/subs the occasional foreign Navy ships and subs, QE2, etc...good times.
My dad was an engineer on the SS Mindi [suction dredge], SS Cascadas [dipper dredge] and the crane Hercules.
He'd be a tad disappointed in how Panama managed this expansion...but he'd welcome it at the same time.