7 Metre Embankment, 3 Tier Bridge & Hintok Cutting

3 Tier Bridge

There are many sites along the Burma-Thailand Railway where you can only be amazed by the construction ability of the men who built them. Sites like the Bridge over the River Kwai, the Wang Pho Viaduct and the railway cutting known as Hellfire Pass. Without exception, these sites were constructed with little more than hand tools and the sweat of the POW’s who laboured under the harsh treatment of the Japanese for long hours each day.

In the mountainous section, about 2 kilometres north of Kannyu Cutting (Hellfire Pass), is a sweeping left-hand bend in the railway made up of the 7 Metre Embankment, the site of the Three Tier Bridge and Hintok Cutting. Separately, each represented a substantial construction but together, an enormous undertaking by any measure.

Principally built by Australian and British POW’s from D Force and members of Weary Dunlop’s Dunlop Force, this construction involved building the 7 Metre Embankment where all the material was carried to site using large buckets. The Three Tier Bridge started by being built on the 7 Metre Embankment to achieve the required height and then continued at a height of about 10 metres across a valley until Hintok Cutting. All the timbers for the bridge were cut from teak forests some distance away and manually hauled to site.

Hintok Cutting, although nowhere near the size of Hellfire Pass, was constructed in similar fashion using the ‘Hammer and Tap’ technique.

The site was the target of many unsuccessful raids by allied aircraft towards the end of the war. Today, evidence of these attacks can be seen with several bomb craters easily observed nearby. And after rain, shrapnel from the bombs can still be found by the keen eye.

7 Metre Embankment (from site of 3 Tier Bridge)

7 Metre Embankment (from on top looking south)

3 Tier Bridge (looking south to 7 Metre Embankment

Hintok Cutting

Abuttment for the 3 Tier Bridge (looking north towards Hintok Cutting)

Bomb crater