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Bridge · Tha Makham, Kanchanaburi, Kanchanaburi

Bridge over the River Kwai

สะพานข้ามแม่น้ำแคว

The River Kwai Bridge is the railway bridge over the Khwae Yai River in Tha Makham subdistrict, Kanchanaburi, built with prisoner-of-war labour for the Thailand–Burma railway in the Second World War and still used by trains.

Why go

Kanchanaburi Town Municipality says the original bridge was built by Allied prisoners of war under the control of the Japanese army, that Allied bombing brought down its central section, and that after the war the Thai government repaired it in 1946, replacing the central piers with two steel spans and the wooden end spans with steel. It says the bridge, 322.90 metres long, now carries trains on the Thonburi–Nam Tok line. The municipality lists the bridge among its important places. The same page gives two different building times, one year and one month, so neither is stated here. This record is the bridge, not the railway as a route, the River Kwai Bridge railway stop or the 1957 film.

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Town

Kanchanaburi

Kanchanaburi is a town municipality in Mueang Kanchanaburi District, created on 25 March 1936 over Ban Nuea and Ban Tai subdistricts and enlarged in 1974 to 9.16 square kilometres, according to the municipality. The municipality lists the bridge over the Khwae River and an Allied war cemetery among its important places, and says it named 22 roads leading to the bridge after 22 nations in remembrance of the foreign labourers the Japanese army conscripted to build it.

Near Bridge over the River Kwai

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