More on why and what I am doing

A post in the Model Railroader magazine forum

Original question on Ever re-created a movie or t.v. scene on your layout?

My answer:

My entire model railway (I am currently working on the track layout on the foam) is based somewhat on The Bridge on the River Kwai.

My late father was a POW on the River Kwai.

I have just finished a book on a war crimes trial of River Kwai prison guards, called The Sonkrai Tribunal, that will be published in Australia this fall (I still haven't found a North American publisher)



During the research for the book I obtained original WWII intelligence reports which listed such things as rolling stock, locomotives, number of wooden trestle bridges (680) and steel (8) and how stations and yards were configured. Reading and rereading the reports rekindled my long dormant interest in model railroading.

The period I am modelling is after the war, when the rail line was run by the British military, with cooperation from Thai Railways. This period ended in 1947, but the freelance element is that the railway continued to operate throughout the 1940s, as intended by pre-war planners in UK and Thailand as a short cut between Southeast Asia and India.

(During the research I came across a United Nations report that proposed that idea was still viable today. I blogged that last spring )

It allows for an interesting mix of locos and rolling stock. As well as Japanese engines brought in and used by the Japanese Army, there were locos appropriated by Japan from the Federated Malay States Railway, a number of British made for export locos and U.S. built Baldwins. Those Japanese locos were handed over to Burma and Thailand after the war and continued to operate for many years in both countries.

It's in N Scale called the Wampo, Nieke and Sonkrai.

I plan to unveil a blog on how my progress on the WNS in a couple of weeks.

Robin