Kra Isthmus
The Kra Isthmus railway was a rail line constructed for Imperial Japan during World War II linking Chumphon to Kra Buri in Thailand. The railroad connected the Bangkok-Singapore Line westward to the west coast of the Kra Isthmus near Victoria Point (Kawthaung). Sir Andrew Gilchrist wrote a harrowing account of worker conditions. Malay and Tamil slave laborers were used and material moved from Kelantan. Allied bombing in 1945 ended the 11-month operation of the railroad and the Japanese switched their focus to the Thai-Burma Railway, also referred to as the Death Railway, for the large numbers of prisoners and effectively enslaved workers who died there. They moved equipment, track and personnel from the Kra Isthmus Railway to the Thai-Burma line.