Question by doornobk: Three Gorges Dam lock question?
The Yangtze river had commercial traffic on it before the dam was constructed. I would presume during constriction that traffic was able to go around the dam site using the bypass channels that the river flowed through so no big deal there, more or less business as usual. The dam when completed would have locks and lifts to get boats up the 500+ feet to then take advantage of the deeper water and be able to reach further up river with larger loads. Sounds good on paper. My question is did they just shut down traffic for the 2 years it took to fill up? Or did they have some temporary locks in operation that were then constantly modified till they reached their final height? If that is what they did it would seem like there should be some info on it somewhere since it like the rest of the project would have been pretty new technology.
Got any links with information about the temporary locks? Ideally photos and technical info related to how they did it? Also is that a common practice when building dams?

Best answer:

Answer by texaslivewire360
Yes they did have temporary portable locks in place during the new construction.

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