International Railroad Discussion > The Trans-River Kwai Death Railway - Thailand

I thought I'd share some photos I took in Thailand last July.  These are from the "Trans-River Kwai Death Railway" near Kanchanaburi.

The first photo is a Garratt steam locomotive on display near the Kanchanaburi station.  Thailand had 8 of these built between 1929 and 1937 by Henschel in Germany.

The next one is State Railway of Thailand 4201 adding more cars for the tourist train to Nam Tok.  It's an AD24C built by Adtranz in 1980.

The third one is the conductor punching our tickets on train 257.

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The next photo is on the Tham Kasae bridge.  It goes lengthwise along a cliff.

And a photo of people walking on the bridge to get to a Buddhist temple in a cave.

Kanchanaburi is the location of the famous River Kwai bridge.  It's nothing like the one in the movie.  Lots of people like to walk on the bridge.
 

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Of course, everyone gets out of the way when a train comes.  This is SRT 4201 again.  I went by car back to Kanchanaburi.

This is the bridge from the side.

This one is at the River Kwai Bridge station.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/15/20 17:59 by schaffner.

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And here's the River Kwai Bridge station restroom.

There are a few steam locomotives on display here.

And this truck that was converted to rail.  SRT is meter gauge.

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These photos are of the Kanchanaburi War Cemetery.  It has graves of victims of Imperial Japanese imprisonment while building the Burma Railway.  6982 mostly British, Australian, and Dutch POW's are buried here.

Jim Maurer

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Very nice pictures and history in your thread. Thanks to share with us this famous location and its interesting history.

Pedro Rezende
Vespasiano MG,
https://youtube.com/c/minasgeraisrailways1

I'm speechless ! 
Incredible pictures and a great history lesson...
 

thank you for the great images of a great piece of history i probably won't see in person.  outstanding............

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I got to ride the Death Railway as part of a tour on the Eastern and Oriental Express in 2011. Out train was late into Bangkok so the side trip was scrapped.  Instead, the train operator organized a private tour by car out to the line..at no additional cost. As I recall the cars on the train were way more run down than those shown in your excellent photos. As for the famous bridge my guide indicated the trusses with the crescent looking shape are original to the first steel structure. The squared off ones replaced those bombed out during the war. 

I was on a tour to that area years ago.  Most of your photos look so familiar.  I believe there were some Americans that died in that area but their remains were repatriated to Hawaii.  On our tourist train into the jungle (I half expected to see more wild life - tigers? alas, only tame elephants) we were served beverages.  I took the ice and threw it out the window and poured the soft drink into the cup.  Others followed my example.  Coming back to Bangkok, on a bus, we passed, of all things, a K-Mart in the suburbs!

There were two parallel bridges, one wood and one steel.  The wood one carried only light truck and foot traffic, but in the fictionalized novel and film it was made into the railway bridge.   The steel rail bridge and the wood bridge were bombed and rebuilt after the war and is the same that stands today.

Thanks for the pictures.

Mike Massee
Tehachapi, CA
Photography, Railroading and more..

It is incomprehensible how the Japanese back in that period of time loved to kill and, apparently, be killed. Not only did many allied prisoners die, but many Japanese due to jungle diseases. All of this was for naught as the railroad never reached it's objectives. The majority of people involved in this project died, so "Death Railway" in an appropriate name for this railroad.