Talk:Burma Railway

message: Whence the assertion about the line being regauged?  Last I checked SRT operates only narrow-gauge lines. Jpatokal 16:25, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Standard gauge?

message: The line was built to standard Siamese and Burmese gauge 1000 mm ( metre ) connecting these
two Railway networks. The seremonial opening day is also given as 15.10.1943.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.112.174.220 (talk) 18:26, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Gauge 1000 mm 

message: "The construction of the Death Railway was only one of many major war crimes committed by Japan during the course of its wars in Asia" Was anyone tried for crimes they committed during the building of this railway? If so who and what was the war cime they had committed? Please also add details to the Axis war crimes page --Philip Baird Shearer 01:34, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Guilty of war crimes

message: Should this page be moved to "Burma Railway"? it seems a more encyclopedic title --Astrokey44 02:42, 12 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree. I was well aware of the Burma Railway, but had never heard the name Death Railway until I first saw this article. Grant65 | Talk 08:19, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Move?

message: This is the official Japanese name for the Thailand ( Siam ) - Burma Railway. It was planned
by professional Japanese railway engineers who worked on behalf of Imperial Japanese Army´s
Southern Army ( headquarter then in Sai-gon ) Railway Troops and supervised the construction 
of the railway.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.112.174.220 (talk) 18:34, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Taimen - Rensetsu Tetsudo 

message: The railway was used by the Japanese but by the end of the war the Americans bombed the lines with the first guided bombs so that the railway in the end didn't benefit the Japanese wareffort. Does anyone know more about this?
Sections of railway damaged by aerial bombardment were swiftly repaired by Japanese engineers with the help of forced labour.  After the surrender of the Japanese the railway saw limited use by the Allies (it main use was as a means of transport for war graves search parties and evacuation of bodies).  After the war the railway was torn up as there was no practical use for it.  The section from Ban Pong to Nam Tok was later relaid (I can probably find out exactly when) so essentially none of the original railway exists today. Fraser Tweedale 09:12, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Use of the railway 

message: The sentence:"About 200,000 conscripted Asian labourers and 12,000 Japanese army and 60,000 Allied POW's were forced to work on the railway.", is not correct. The Japanese were not forced nor did they work. Maybe 12.000 Japanese had the supervision over the prisoners. But I don't know myself. Erasing the mentioning of the Japanese in the above sentence.
Wereldburger758 18:55, 5 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  12.000 Japanese 

message: I can understand why it's called the Death Railway (because of all the people who died building it) but at the same time it seems kind of like loaded language. In addition, this made a vacation to Burma or Thailand less appealing for me.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.234.176.195 (talk) 21:54, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Believe me, it was less appealing for those who worked on the railway both those who died and the few survivors. --Bejnar (talk) 06:23, 18 November 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Death Railway? 

message: If someone wants to compare the death toll among the POW´s and the Prisoners of Gulag lagers
in Soviet Union after World War Two in 1947 - 1953 when building the Salehard - Urengoi " Death
Railway " the less than 13.000 deaths in Burma and Siam ( Thailand ) is small when compared to
this Stalin´s railway project where more than 40.000 prisoners died during the construction.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.112.174.220 (talk) 20:02, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: There is no doubt that there have been forced labour projects with greater loss of life.  But the loss of 13,000 lives is *never* "small", no matter what it's being compared to.  That brings to mind a quote - interestingly enough, attributed to Stalin - namely, "If one dies, it's a tragedy.  If ten million die, it's a statistic." By all means, create the article about Stalin's railway, and link it to here.  But please don't talk the Burma Railway down.  My father - ex POW, and Burma Railway survivor - would be rolling in his grave.Johnmc (talk) 07:44, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

text: Yeah.  I probably should have been less restrained with my initial reply. However, this particular contributor hasn't made any edits since this one, and no edits where made to the actual article, so the advice regarding "sleeping dogs", etc. etc. might apply.  Interestingly enough, his IP address resolves to Helsinki, but - not being versed in internet skulduggery - this might just mean it was done via proxy or something.  As for "smooth" operation of the railway for 12 months, I would seriously doubt that, considering that the Allies considered - as they would - the railway a prime bombing target even before it was completed.Johnmc (talk) 02:12, 12 September 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  The Real Death Railway 

message: I can understand why Grant65 removed the details of US units involved on the line (it doesn't flow in well with the opening paragraph), but i think there is room for a "units involved in construction of the line" section, with details of Australian, British, Dutch and US military units that were used.  (I realise this doesn't address civilian labour).Johnmc (talk) 10:29, 20 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Details of units used on the line 

message: The opening paragraph of the Hellfire Pass deals with the subject, but the remainder of it deals with the Burma Railway in general, duplicating a lot of the Burma_Railway article.   I think the Hellfire Pass paragraph could be incorporated into this article as a subsection, and the other information absorbed into the article. Johnmc (talk) 02:28, 12 September 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Support Merge - Hellfire Pass can be safely moved into Burma Railway.  «l| Ψrometheăn ™|l»   (talk) 23:07, 11 November 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Merge proposal with Hellfire Pass 

message: The rail gauge, which is not mentioned, is presumably ? Peter Horn User talk 20:43, 17 August 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Correct.  Same gauge as the rest of the Thai/Malaysian/Cambodian system.Johnmc (talk) 21:57, 17 August 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Rail gauge 

message: I like how the proportion of deaths among "Asian laborers", their working conditions, and the breakdown of their nationalities is less significant than that of the POWs, even as they outnumbered them 3 to 1. Seriously, does this page have to overemphasize the importance of captured Allied combatants rather than defenseless civilians? - 60.49.108.118 (talk) 09:47, 24 October 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, yes. Wikipedia limits itself to published sources, and defenseless civilians didn't publish many, even though there simply wouldn't be any combatants if there weren't defenseless civilians to support them, cradle to the grave. --Pawyilee (talk) 16:29, 27 October 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Not this again 

message: This section contains several redlinks and unreferenced persons.
I propose that these are deleted in, say, six weeks unless authenticated prior to this.Tomintoul (talk) 15:14, 14 May 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Prominent people who helped build the line 

message: "16,000 Allied POWs died as a direct result of the project. The dead POWs included 6,318 British personnel, 2,815 Australians, 2,490 Dutch, about 356 Americans and a smaller number of Canadians and New Zealanders."
This does not compute. 6318+2815+2490+356 = 11,979. If the number of Canadians and New Zealanders are individually less than 356, then the total by simple addition cannot be more than 12,689. Were there other nationalities of Allied POWs involved but not mentioned? Perhaps Indians? I realize there is a reference for the passage, but oughtn't there be a note added that the numbers don't compute? It's frustrating to find such glaring numerical problems in an encyclopedia article. Fnj2 (talk) 01:44, 22 August 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Numbers are inconsistent 

message: "In accordance with the traditions of the US military, the remains of its personnel were repatriated to the United States: ..." I think that this sentence is false because remains of many WWII soldiers are still in military cemetery in France. Skiff (talk) 10:20, 31 December 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: Mistake

message: What's the deal with the "for reference only" links? This is a style I've not seen anywhere else in Wikipedia. Should they go? --Yaush (talk) 17:41, 6 November 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  "For reference only" 

message: Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just modified  on Burma Railway. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20141008133136/http://www.mansell.com:80/pow_resources/camplists/death_rr/movements_1.html to http://www.mansell.com/pow_resources/camplists/death_rr/movements_1.html;
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*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20120306191038/http://www.netcore.us/1/afm/azonbomb.html to http://www.netcore.us/1/afm/azonbomb.html
*Added  tag to http://www.cwgc.org/search-for-war-dead.aspx?cpage=1&sort=name&order=asc
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20070716203149/http://home.vicnet.net.au:80/~a23mgb/f_hist/tbr_hist.htm to http://home.vicnet.net.au/~a23mgb/f_hist/tbr_hist.htm
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20070815152759/http://www.tourismthailand.org/destinationguide/list.aspx?provinceid=56&typeid=7 to http://www.tourismthailand.org/destinationguide/list.aspx?provinceid=56&typeid=7
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20030721053930/http://www.ean.co.uk:80/Bygones/History/Article/WW2/Death_Railway/body_index.htm to http://www.ean.co.uk/Bygones/History/Article/WW2/Death_Railway/body_index.htm
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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: This page have been restrutured. All imporper information in Lead section have replaced in sub section. Please read : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Lead_section. This page have to be unruffled. Please help to increase it.
Few references are required.
--Philogik (talk) 18:52, 2 December 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Page's restructuration 

message: no offense to the guy who wrote the book about entertainment, but two paragraphs on it seems kind of excessive given the abridged nature of an article on this massive effort that took so many lives. I don't know which parts of the paragraphs were the most important to the guy who wrote it, but I think these should be trimmed down and condensed into one sentence. Ukrpickaxe (talk) 03:23, 31 December 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  music and entertainment 

message: I've reverted the short description "former railway in south east asia" because it is misleading. The name "Burma Railway" is associated with the use of POWs for its construction and wasn't ever the actual name of the railway, neither was it ever a railway in the conventional sense (timetables, tickets, etc.). Perhaps a description that characterizes it as a POW built railway built to further the Japanese war effort or something along those lines? (I'm not a short description writer so apologies for reverting without replacing). --regentspark (comment) 20:25, 6 March 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Short description 

message: Coming hear after watching TVO's Impossible Railways episode 2, I'm a bit surprised to not see any reference to Wampo's viaduct / Tham Krasae bridge. Should something be added in that regard ?
https://www.tvo.org/video/documentaries/ep-2-into-the-wild
http://thaigrouptours.com/tham-krasae-bridge/
76.64.86.185 (talk) 03:54, 22 April 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Wampo Viaduct?  

message: I am absolutely no expertI am absolutely no expert in this field but having just visited the death Railway Museum in Chanthanaburi its is well documented that 60,000 POW and over 250,000 forced Asian labourers who have been relatively unacknowledged built the railway. I would not want to be the one to create an edit but the founder and curator of the museum has done some invaluable reseach and could clearly provide the facts.  That's the opening sentence stating the POW's built the railway is clearly only a smaller proportion of the truth. There is an interesting NYTimes article on this fact. 2001:44C8:444E:C550:1:1:5E91:A91F (talk) 11:40, 8 February 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  We should acknowledge the 250,000 Asian labourers 

message: Crimes against humanity is a specific legal concept. In order to be included in the category, the event (s) must have been prosecuted as a crime against humanity, or at a bare minimum be described as such by most reliable sources. Most of the articles that were formerly in this category did not mention crimes against humanity at all, and the inclusion of the category was purely original research. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 07:49, 14 February 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  Crimes against humanity category removal 

message: This page should be renamed the Siam-Burma Death Railway or Burma Death Railway.  The railway is infamous across SE Asia as the Death railway, in history books, as remembered by the families of the thousands of civilian workers, as also reflected in ongoing campaigns regarding colonized SE Asian workers who died to build the railway.  
Currently this page is not a historic record, it suffers from an over-reliance on a single individual's perspective and fictional accounts Jimmred (talk) Jimmred (talk) 14:14, 7 April 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  Rename Page to Siam-Burma Death Railway or Burma Death Railway