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This model railway is classified

The prototype elements of the Wampo, Nieke and Sonkrai are based on two post-war intelligence reports on the Burma Thailand Railway.

The main report was written by then Lt. Cecil Carter Brett, a Canadian intelligence officer serving in Southeast Asia as part of a joint British-Canadian-U.S. Intelligence, interrogation and translation corps. (Brett later became head of Asian studies at Monmouth College in Illinois).

The second report was written by the Japanese under issued under the name of Yoshimoto and introduced as evidence in the Tokyo War Crimes trial. The locomotives and rolling stock I have chosen are based on lists in Brett's report, with additional information from the Yoshimoto report and information obtained from rail and steam buffs and websites.

After the end of the Second World War, the British military ran the railway, in cooperation with Thai State Railway and the Burma Railway for about a year. The Burma portion of the line was abandoned in June 1946, due to the high cost in money, equipment and possibly lives of maintaining the line, Britain and the rails salvaged for scrap. Britain turned the railway over to Thailand in October 1946 for £15.Million and the line was dismantled north of Nam Tok.

Freelance elements The area where the toughest construction for the prisoner of war and coolie labour was at the mountain border crossing at Three Pagoda Pass, an area with a sparse population even today. Under normal circumstances (as a recent United Nations study showed) a railway in this area would be uneconomic.

For the purposes of this model railway The complete line continued to operate after June 1946, operated by Great Britain who had claimed ownership of the railway because it was built partly with POW labour and as the colonial power in Burma and in cooperation with the Thai State Railway system. The freelance assumption is that the railway continued to operate and that it is now late 1947.

Locomotive and rolling stock

The standard gauge in Southeast Asia is three metres, narrow gauge but almost all the locomotives and rolling stock were standard gauge prototypes. All were modified somewhat for use in Southeast Asia, so most of the locomotives I have purchased are “as close as possible." On the BurmaThailand Railway, the Japanese used:

• Locomotives androlling stock shipped from Japan

• British locomotives and rolling stock based on British models from the Federated Malay States Railway and Burma Railway

• US built Baldwin locomotives built for and modified by the Federated Malay StatesRailway

• Japanese built locomotives purchased by Thailand prior to the outbreak of war.