page_title: Sumatra Railway
section_title: Legacy and memorial
hierarchical_section_title: Sumatra Railway / Legacy and memorial
caption_attribution_description: English: Locomotive Remains along the Pekanbaru Death Railway near Lipit Kain. This site is near the location of POW camp 7 - Taken by Amanda Farrell
context_page_description: The Sumatra Railway, also referred to as the Pekanbaru Death Railway, was a railway project of the Imperial Japanese army in Sumatra during the Second World War. It was designed to connect Pekanbaru to Muaro in an effort to strengthen the military and logistical infrastructure for coal and troop shipments. The 220 km long railway would connect the Strait of Malacca, via the Siak River to Pekanbaru, to Padang via an existing railway from Muaro.
  The railway was completed on Victory over Japan Day, 15 August 1945. It was only ever used to transport prisoners of war out of the area but quickly became overgrown by the jungle.
context_section_description: The railway was never fully utilised and remains unused and in an advanced state of decay. The Japanese also directed construction of the Burma Railway and Kra Isthmus Railway (from Chumphon to Kra Buri).
  The Sumatra Railway Memorial was unveiled on VJ Day in 2001 at the National Memorial Arboretum in Alrewas, England near Lichfield, Staffordshire. The memorial commemorates the approximately 5,000 prisoners of war and 30,000 locals who were forced to work on the 140-mile (230 km) Sumatra railway project and is located next to the Far East Prisoners of War Memorial Building. The memorial's unveiling was attended by former prisoners of war, the Japanese ambassador to Britain (Sadayuki Hayashi) and included a peace stone and the planting of flowering trees to symbolise reconciliation.
caption: Locomotive Remains along the Pekanbaru Death Railway near Lipat Kain. This site is near the location of POW camp 7 - Photo taken by Amanda Farrell[3]
exif: {"Image Make": "Canon", "Image Model": "Canon DIGITAL IXUS 65", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "180", "Image YResolution": "180", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image DateTime": "2007:07:15 17:21:37", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Centered", "Image ExifOffset": "186", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "180", "Thumbnail YResolution": "180", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "2970", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "4916", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/640", "EXIF FNumber": "14/5", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0220", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2007:07:15 17:21:37", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2007:07:15 17:21:37", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "5", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "149/16", "EXIF ApertureValue": "95/32", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "95/32", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, auto mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "29/5", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "568", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "757", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "Interoperability RelatedImageWidth": "2816", "Interoperability RelatedImageLength": "2112", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "2822", "EXIF FocalPlaneXResolution": "112640/9", "EXIF FocalPlaneYResolution": "2112000/169", "EXIF FocalPlaneResolutionUnit": "2", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "1", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard"}