Burma railway train reborn as tourist attraction
Burma railway train reborn as tourist attraction
Hiroshi Osedo
September 08, 2007 12:00am
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FEARED . . the restored Mitsubishi C-56-44 steam train.
THE sound of its whistle once struck dread into the hearts of Australian PoWs on the notorious Thai-Burma Railway during World War II.
Now Japanese tourists and day-trippers will pay for the privilege of riding on one of the steam trains that helped in the construction of the deadly 420km railway in 1942 and 1943.
Built by Mitsubishi in 1936, the engine C-56-44 was one of two shipped back to Japan from Thailand in 1979 and ran on the Oi-gawa River Railway in southwestern Japan from 1980 until 2003, when it was retired for boiler repairs.
After the war, C-56 locomotives were kept in service in Thailand until the 1970s and into the '80s in poverty-stricken Burma.
The restored locomotive now sports a new green paint job, as it did when it was in service in post-war Thailand, and sometimes used by the Thai royal families.
Now with a new boiler from a different model train, C-56-44 will shunt out of Kanaya Station for "irregular operations" on October 7.
The picturesque 37.5km line boasts 14 tunnels, including a 14m-long tunnel, Japan's shortest, in Shizuoka Prefecture, 180km southwest of Tokyo.
Now, weekend trips through the Japanese countryside will be the train's forte, says Masahiro Ueno of the Oi-gawa River Railway.
"The locomotive C-56 will be able to pull up to seven cars, depending on the number of passengers who want to ride," Mr Ueno said .
"It will not run every day, but on weekends only, perhaps."
About 2600 of the 9500 Australians forced to work on the infamous Thai-Burma Railway died, as did a further 13,000 English, Indian, Dutch and American prisoners as the Japanese pushed their way through the jungle in an ultimately unsuccessful bid to wrest control of India from the British.
Many of the PoWs died of cholera, dysentery, malnutrition, beri-beri, overwork and starvation.
Australian veterans well-remember the horrors of the railway, which started 40km west of Bangkok, crossed Thailand and Burma to finish near Rangoon.
Rides on the revamped C-56 will cost $25 and take about an hour and 20 minutes to complete.
The sister engine of locomotive C-56-44, Number 31, has already been preserved at the Yasukuni Jinja, a shinto shrine in central Tokyo – the trains are two of the 164 originally built.
news.com.au
