Question on Railroads in the 1940s

I am not that knowledgable on either railroads or building them. Sadly they are probably quite important to my timeline I am working on. I was therefore wondering if anyone had thoughts on how hard it would be to build several railroads into Burma in say 1942/3 with American help.

In my view one of the challenges facing both Japan and Britain in that period was logistics in Burma, we know Japan struggled and Britain partly overcame it with air supply. I wondered if an alternative is more railways, with a view to building or improving existing infrastructure from Calcutta to at least Ledo and Rangoon in the space of a year. The idea is to be able to ship overland from Bombay, and support a more significant army than we saw in the history books.
 

Redbeard

Banned
Building a railroad line in itself is a tremenndous task, especially if the line is supposed to continiously carry large amounts of cargo. Add next the troubles in a difficult terrain like the Burmese. Think "Bridge over River Kwai" times 100. Building harbours and roads inland probably would be more affordable.
 

Devvy

Donor
Building any serious railway (and by serious I mean not a particularly narrow gauge) is a tremendous effort - even more so on hilly/mountainous terrain. Burma has a nice central north-south valley, but anything east-west is going to be difficult and expensive to build.

Put it this way; laying simple tracks on the ground is easy. But making clearing a way can be difficult through forests, jungle or urban areas. Things get even more difficult when you start having vertical obstructions; valleys, rivers, bodies of water all need large bridges building, whilst hills and mountains need cuttings and potentially tunnels digging.

The Arakan Mountains (I think that's their name) that lie on the Indian/Burmese border are going to massively complicate any potential rail link between India and Burma. I'm not familiar with the geography of the area, but if there's any significant digging and tunnelling needed, then a year is going to be ambitious and require a ton of labour and resources.
 
Where the railroads going? There were plans to build a railroad along the Burma Road into China (from Lashio to Kunming) before the Japanese invasion interrupted it. However, it proved considerably more difficult than planned, and the completion date was kept being pushed back.

If you are talking from India to Burma, I'm not sure of the difficulties, but probably pretty bad. The Arakan Mountains are right inbetween. Most likely the effort and resources in building a railroad are greater than their benefits during the expected timeframe of the war.
 
I am not that knowledgable on either railroads or building them. Sadly they are probably quite important to my timeline I am working on. I was therefore wondering if anyone had thoughts on how hard it would be to build several railroads into Burma in say 1942/3 with American help.

In my view one of the challenges facing both Japan and Britain in that period was logistics in Burma, we know Japan struggled and Britain partly overcame it with air supply. I wondered if an alternative is more railways, with a view to building or improving existing infrastructure from Calcutta to at least Ledo and Rangoon in the space of a year. The idea is to be able to ship overland from Bombay, and support a more significant army than we saw in the history books.
This might be helpful. Burma railways in the thirties. https://web.archive.org/web/20050307140632/http://mikes.railhistory.railfan.net/r044.html
Indian hill/mountain railways in the same period https://web.archive.org/web/20050306030206/http://mikes.railhistory.railfan.net/r019.html
 
Top