Between the years 1942 and 1943, during World War II, the imperial Japanese Army built a railway from Ban Pong, in Thailand, to Thanbyuzayat, in Burma.
The railway was around 258 miles long, and was built through some most horrid, disease ridden areas on the planet and was to supply a large Japanese Army in Burma.
The railroad however, was not built primarily through machines. No, it was built by the POWs and civilian internees that the Japanese had captured as a means of punishing them. The Japanese soldiers, at the time, believed that surrender was a disgrace and were taught that other Asian cultures (especially Chinese) were inferior. Despite this, it still doesn't explain some of the worst atrocities they committed, such as the Bataan Death March and The Rape of Nanking.
The project resulted in a huge loss of life of the Allied Prisoners of War and Asian forced labour that were used to construct it. An estimated 13,000 POWs and 80,000 Asian labourers died of disease, sickness, starvation and brutality at the hands of the Japanese.