International Railroad Discussion > Thailand Burma-Siam Railway round trip photos

The second railway adventure in Thailand was riding the rebuilt section of the Burma-Siam Railway. It is also known as the Thailand-Burma Railway, Burma Railway, Siam-Burma Railway, or Death Railway. This railway was depicted in the very successful 1955 movie “Bridge over the River Kwai.” The movie is based on a best-selling 1952 book. Highlights of the book and movie are the construction of a railway bridge over the River Kwai. Spoiler alert 1: in a very suspenseful scene, the bridge was destroyed by a British-American commando team while the inaugural train was running on it. Spoiler alert 2: according to the article “The Bridge That Never Was” written by W. L. Gwyer published in the Fall-Winter 2004 Railroad History, there were 2 parallel bridges. One bridge was wood and the other was steel. The article states that the steel bridge was destroyed in June 1945 by air strikes, and that in 1945 – 1946 Thailand dismantled the wooden bridge and ripped up their portion of the railway.  This article and history books describe the horrors of the railway and bridge construction much better than I can.

After the movie release, the bridge site became a tourist attraction. But tourists may have been disappointed because neither the bridge nor the railway remained. Also, tourists may have been confused because the bridge site in the book and movie was called the River Kwai. But according to the above article by W. L. Gwyer, the bridge was actually over the River Mae Klong. Thailand may have realized that they had a tourist gold mine. So the article mentions that Thailand renamed the River Mae Klong into the River Kwai. It also mentions that Thailand rebuilt the railway to the bridge site and beyond to a stop at Nam Tok, and that the reconstruction included a new railway bridge over what is now renamed as the River Kwai.

The State Railway of Thailand (SRT) operates daily trains to the bridge site. On weekends SRT operates a special round trip “tour” train from Bangkok past the railway bridge to Nam Tok. The outbound train is number 909 and the return train is number 910. I rode these trains. The train had 4 stops and all stops had time to walk around and visit the sites.The first picture is where the tour train starts at the Hua Lamphong Railway station. It is the older Bangkok station. Notice it is called Bangkok. The newer Krung Thep Aphiwat Station (which is the Chiang Mai train destination mentioned in my earlier post) is not called Bangkok. So I had to be very careful when buying SRT tickets!!

The second picture is the inside of the Hua Lamphong. It is a classic station with a vaulted ceiling.

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The top photo is a steam locomotive on display in the track area.

The second photo is the train I rode. As best as I could tell, the train is composed of DMUs. The cars have “grab bars” so on Monday to Friday maybe these cars are used on commuter trains.

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Stop 1 is the town of Nakhon Pathom. Next to the station is a shopping street and it is a short walk to a Buddhist temple. I did not take a photo of the shopping street, but the two photos show the Buddhist temple and a close up of the decoration of the roadway.

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Stop 2 is the River Kwai Bridge.  The top photo is the bridge sign.

The middle photo is a view of the bridge from next to the river.

The last photo is a memorial plaque next to the bridge.

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The top 2 photos are people walking across the bridge.  The train travels very slowly across the bridge to be certain that pedestrians are in the safe areas on the sides of the bridge.

The last photo is a Buddhist temple on the other side of the bridge.

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The top photo is the builder's plate on the rebuilt bridge.

The next 2 photos are rock cuts.  It must have been very difficult manual labor to make these cuts.

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Stop 3 is Nam Tok and a short walk to the Sai Yok Noi water fall. The train then returns to Bangkok.

The top photos are the signs announcing the Nam Tok station and the Sai Yok Noi water fall.  The waterfall is inside a Thailand National Park, and I saw many people going to this park. Several restaurants and tourist shops here.

The bottom photo is the waterfall and people swimming at the bottom of the waterfall.

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These photos are also at Nam Tok.

The top is a steam locomotive on display just past the stop and then a plaque with information on that locomotive.

The bottom photo is our train getting return to depart for the return to Bangkok.

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Very nice set of pictures.  Thanks for posting!

J.

Stop 4 is Kanchanaburi. It is site of 2 Allies' cemeteries and a museum.

The top photo is a statue next to the Kanchanaburi station.  I do not know the name of the person depicted.

The middle photo is a very small part of one of the 2 Allies' cemeteries.  As you can see above the grave marker in the front, the cemetery goes on for quite a distance.  

The bottom photo is the Death Railway Museum and Research Center.  The name Death Railway is because, according to the article by W. L. Gwyer mentioned earlier, 100,000 Asians and 13,000 POWs perished in the construction of the railway.  It is a Research Center because the article also mentions that Japan destroyed the official records of the railway construction, and so many of the details have been lost.  

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Impressive number of people on the bridge taking photos or videos of your train with their phones. I enjoyed the post.

Great photos.  My wife and I visited the Bridge in October 1998.  At the time, the Eastern Orient Express stopped there running from Malaysia to Bangkok.  There were a steam loco and a railbus on display at the station for the Bridge.
We also visited the cemeteries at Kanchanaburi.  I learned that American deceased, originally buried there, were re-patriated to Hawaii.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/23/26 18:11 by boejoe.

Thank you for posting. Great pictures and narrative.

Interesting discussion and photography.   Thanks!

Greg Stadter
Phoenix, AZ

dengor55 Wrote:
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> The bottom photo is our train getting return to
> depart for the return to Bangkok.

That should be State Railway of Thailand's (SRT) Class NKF, according to Japanese sources. I'm speculating that NKF might be the acronym for the initial contractors that built the DMUs, Nippon Sharyo, Kawasaki , and Fuji Heavy Industries.

Not in the acronym, but Hitachi, Niigata Engineering, and KinkiSharyo were also contractors, and 1249 in the photo was made by Niigata Engineering, now out of business. Anyway, NKF is a Thai design, not some of the hand-me-downs from Japan (JNR) that Thailand also runs.

Sorry the the tangent, but thank you for the reports! I have fond memories from visiting Chiang Mai many years ago, culminating in riding an elephant, then being charged by a playful baby elephant (no one hurt). 
 

What a fascinating post. Thank you!

Thanks for posting this. I've seen the movie, and was aware of the high POW death toll. I had no idea that the toll among native Asians was that high.