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Variously referred to as the Thai-Burma Railway, the Siam–Burma Railway or ultimately, the ‘Death Railway’, the railway was to link Thailand and Burma The route had been surveyed by the British in the 1880s. Plans were never developed because of the thick jungle, lack of contiguous supply routes and the potential for disease.
 The Japanese took up the challenge of its building in October 1942, in order to provide logistic support to a planned attack of the British in the Indian sub-continent.
PoWs and Asian work gangs were to be used to build it. It would run for 260 miles.
Some of the 137 men who had escaped the surrender of Singapore had made their way to Sumatra only to be captured there and shipped to the Burma end of the Railway to work.
Those captured in Singapore were rounded up from camps there to work both at the Thailand end and at stages along the route. Some 60,000 allied troops were used and abused, out of the labour force of around 200,000. 12,000 troops died or were killed during its construction. The railway was completed by October 1943 and involved hacking through jungle, constructing deep cuttings and embankments, tunnels and 688 bridges as well as over 60 stations, in the most appalling conditions.
On its completion and in spite of allied bombings, the line carried two complete Divisions of Troops and in excess of 50 000 tonnes of food and ammunition to Burma for the Japanese offensive into India. Allied Troops and Asian Workers were also used to maintain and repair the tracks until the War ended in 1945.
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