THE train left Takanun at about 9.30 in the morning and arrived in Chungkai about midnight. As the first part of the journey was the part we wanted to see, we were fortunate and dusk didn’t fall before we reached the Tarsao area. It will readily be understood that we were extremely interested to see the fruit of our own labours, and as the train dragged its way slowly along the inclines of the first 100 kilometres we had plenty of opportunity. In a matter of four or five months the quick growing vegetation had already so altered appearances that we were not even certain when we were in the big cutting we had ourselves made near 203 Camp. Here and there, near bridges and often by the highest embankments, we saw trucks that had rolled off the line and been abandoned – I counted thirteen on my side. Brankasi, the camp below us, had been turned into a repair shop for locomotives and a vast Transport Camp that would make a tempting target for our bombers, yet there were still many British troops there, mostly drivers and mechanics. The area around Hintok and Kanu was the most impressive stretch, being a veritable mountain railway hewn and blasted out of the mountain sides for about 15 kilometres; the view across the afforested valleys was superb. But we looked at the railway from a different point of view; all of us were thinking: God! How those chaps must have had to work here – it must have been hell! We even passed one or two Nip graves where some of the less nimble members of the I.J.A. had been rolled out under an avalanche.

From this mountainous area to Tarsao was plain sailing. We halted for 20 minutes at one station where we had to draw and eat our rice very quickly, and from then on the train went at a steady 30-40 miles per hour on a track that felt really solid. It was now night and it wasn’t until we were outside Wun Lun where the train stopped and the Nips bought some bananas and gave us some, that we were sure of our whereabouts. We then tried to spot the bridges the officers had made outside Chungkai, but we missed them, for we found ourselves passing through the quarry cutting, and after another minute the train came to a shuddering stop and we had arrived. In the dark we could see nothing, certainly no signs of a platform, and when half the trainload had emptied itself and the other half was still doubtful what to do, the engine suddenly started to continue its journey, and kit and men came flying out of the trucks in the dark.