Hellfire Pass is the name of a railway cut on Thailand 's former Burma Railway constructed with forced labour during World War II.A especially challenging section of the line to construct was the Hellfire Pass at the Tenasserim Hills. It was the largest rock cut on the railway, combined with its general remoteness and the lack of adequate building equipment during construction. A tunnel could have been built instead of cutting, but this could only be built at any one time at the two ends, while the cutting could be built simultaneously at both points given the extra effort needed by the POWs. The Japanese had forced the Australian , British, Dutch and other allied prisoners of war to work 18 hours a day to complete the cutting.In the six weeks it took to build the cutting, 69 people were beaten to death by Japanese guards and many more died of cholera , dysentery, malnutrition and fatigue. Most deaths, however, occurred among labourers whom the Japanese persuaded to come along to help develop the line with false promises of good employment. These labourers, mostly Chinese, Malaysian and Malayan Tamils, suffered at the hands of Japanese mostly the same as the POWs. The Japanese didn't keep records of those deaths.
The railway was never extended to a degree of permanence, and was regularly bombed during the Burma War by the Royal Air Force. All but the present section was closed after the war, and the line is now in service only between Bangkok and Nam Tok Sai Yok Noi.In 2006, proposals to establish a railway network linking eight countries in south-east Asia would see a railway link restored between Thailand and Myanmar. It is not clear whether this would follow the original Death Railway route through Hellfire Pass, as this route was necessarily built quickly and to low curve and gradient standards.
