October 2022 marks the 80th anniversary of the ‘official’ start of construction of the Burma-Thailand Railway. Something that would be an engineering success but resulting in the needless loss of so many lives.

Whenever I visit the Burma-Thailand Railway, I am always on the lookout for something that adds a little extra to the story of the Railway now nearly 75 years old. On a recent visit, at Namtok Railway Station, almost at the end of the current operating section of the Railway, I found an old framed black and white photo taken back in 1955, showing the reconstruction of the Bridge over the River Kwai which was badly damaged by allied bombing during the war.

The Bridge over the River Kwai at Tha Markham in Thailand, consisted of two bridges, one a temporary wooden trestle bridge first completed in February 1943 and the other, a high-level steel bridge completed in May of the same year.

Most would have heard of or even seen the movie, The Bridge on the River Kwai. It was based on the novel of the same name written by Pierre Boulle. The movie tells the story of the relationship between a British Colonel (Colonel Nicholson) in charge of a group of POWs and a Japanese Officer (Colonel Saito) in charge of the camp and with the responsibility of building a railway bridge across the River Kwai.