Hamrun Works

Take a rare glimpse inside

Back in 2009, two transport enthusiasts, Mac Head and Keith Hill were lucky enough to see inside the former Malta Railway workshops at Hamrun. We’re enormously grateful to them for allowing us to showcase some of the photos they took in this section.

The ornamental facade of the 2-road erecting shop was revealed again in 2016 when modern structures were removed. The carriage sheds were on the left, where modern arches have been introduced.

Since 1937, much of the Hamrun site has been occupied by the Milk Marketing Undertaking (MMU), now better known by their brand name Benna. They expanded into the former railway workshops after the technical school, an institution first initiated by the railway, vacated it for new premises in Paola in 1965.

Benna’s occupation of the works has largely protected them from demolition or redevelopment, though some changes were less positive. Various unsympathetic industrial additions made to the ornate building frontage were stripped away in 2016, revealing its significance again.

The buildings are presently used for storage, but Government plans are gradually progressing to move the whole milk concern to new purpose-built facilities. After this, the site is slated for setting-out a new park for Hamrun, but there’s been no indication of how it’ll be integrated with the old railway buildings and the heritage of the site celebrated.

Diagramatic plan of Hamrun engineering works with original functions and features marked where known. A smith’s shop, carpenters’ workshop, pattern store, timber and other stores, and ‘electrical room’ also existed

The Erecting Shop and Machine Hall

The heart of the railway works was the erecting shop. It was here that locomotives and rolling stock were brought in for repair or stripped down for overhaul. All the heavy lifting was undertaken on one of two sidings or roads, each equipped with an overhead travelling crane. Each needed to be capable of lifting the heaviest components used on the locomotives; Integrated into the rivetted steel structure supporting the workshop roof, these both survive today.

Daylight floods into the workshops from skylights and high level clerestory windows; though many have since been infilled, those in the main frontage are still preserved.

The erecting shop looking back towards the entrance arches. This was a major addition to the works in about 1904, designed to ensure the railway became self-sufficient in all its engineering needs. Horizontal steal beams can be seen that still support travelling cranes over both roads. (Courtesy of Mac Head)

The original traveling crane still suspended over the northern road. (Courtesy of Mac Head)

The southern road of the erecting shop with crane still in position. The original clerestory windows have been blocked. (Courtesy of Mac Head)

The Railway Gazette noted in 1912: “In the shops are carried out all the minor repairs necessary, there being a fair-sized erecting shop, machine and smiths’ shop, carpenters’ shop, and an electrical room which is also used by the technical students at the local college. There is, too, a small foundry, which turns out a variety of articles, ranging from a brake-block to a lamp post. Besides railway work, a good deal of other labour is performed for the civil Government in these shops, and at the Coronation festivities last year all the decorations in the main streets, electric lighting (exclusive of power) were arranged bv the Railway Manager“

For convenience, the machine hall was accessible as a direct continuation of the erecting shop, separated only by wide stone arches; these formed the original workshop entrance before the purpose-built erecting shop was added in about 1904.

The machine hall housed powered tools, lathes, drills, stamps and bending machines used in the maintenance of the railway’s vehicles. These were powered by belt drives run off a long shaft fixed at high level on the north side of the workshop; a common practice at the time. Steel brackets that once supported this shaft can still be seen. Rotary motion for the shaft was initially provided by a gas engine, possibly the machine with the large flywheel seen in the background of the 1912 photo. By 1927 electric motors were fitted to all machines individually, and the gas engine redundant.

Along the length of the hall are two projecting stone shelves on brackets; these likely carried a traveling crane before the new erecting shop rendered it obsolete. The crane may have been moved and re-utilised in the new facility. Subsequently, the stone shelves were recorded as supporting simple timber beams from which pulleys and blocks offered a more basic lifting mechanism.

The machine hall looking westwards towards Station Road. Brackets supporting the drive belt shaft can be identified in both views on the north wall. The projecting stone shelf supported on corbels may have been for the original travelling crane before the purpose-built erecting shop was added. In the historic photo it supports static timber beams. Seen in 2009 (courtesy of Mac Head) and in 1912 below it.

The Carriage Sheds

The harsh sun, humidity, and salt air were damaging for the timber railway carriages, their paintwork and iron and steel. The railway was always short of adequate covered storage to protect its rollingstock. Several plans were put forward for generous sheds at Hamrun, but the only facilities that were ever completed were two long covered sidings integrated into the southern side of the engineering works.

One long and another shorter siding were laid out along the southern boundary of the station precinct. Each was separated by parallel stone arcades supporting steal beams and flat roofs for shelter. The later erecting shop was built to share the arcaded north wall with its clerestory windows projecting above the lower carriage shed roofs; unlike the erecting shop there was less need for natural light in these sheds.

Over time some of the arches have been partially infilled, but the form of the carriage sheds is still evident in the longitudinal plan of today’s building. The eastern end of these sheds always projected further out than the adjacent ornamental front of the erecting shop, but ultimately these portions were shorn off and given modern arched stone entrances to mimic the architecture around them.

Looking from the erecting shop through the two arcades that separated the space beyond into two carriage sheds. The nearer one was longer than the further siding. The Pattern Shop label on the beam on the left likely post-dates the railway’s closure, but when the technical school still operated. (Courtesy of Mac Head)

The infilled ends of the carriage roads which were once open to the tracks. (Courtesy of Mac Head)

Another view eastwards along the length of the long carriage shed. (Courtesy of Mac Head)

The foundry

A surprising survival in the buildings is an early vertical furnace. The tall cylindrical structure is, more specifically, a cupola furnace. It was used to melt metals for use in casting, generally iron. Nearby was a casting floor covered with special casting sand in which moulds would be made into which the molten metal was poured.

The railway manufactured a variety of components for its own use as well as for other Government departments. Lamp posts or columns for station canopies were as likely products as fitments and components for locomotives or carriages.

This part of the building involved high working temperatures and the very tall ceilings in the foundry helped heat dissipate upwards. Fitments on the walls were used in manoeuvring crucibles of molten metal from the furnace to where the casting was to be made.

It’s likely that forges, used for heating metal for hammering, were also located nearby, focussing hot works at the rear of the building. A pattern shop was also a necessity, in which the wooden models used to form moulds – patterns – would have been carefully stored.

The cupola furnace surviving at the back of the former foundry. The wall behind it backs onto the appropriately named il-Ferrovija, the road past the station site. (Courtesy of Mac Head)

The foundry in railway times, possibly the early 1920s. The furnace is recognisable in the background. Flasks for mould-making are staked on the right. The chains have been used to lift the top of a long mould, exposing a fresh casting. The gentleman in the boater may be railway manager Nicola Buhagiar, who had a knack of appearing in many photos.

One final curiosity to note is a large vertical tank. This is almost certainly the surviving portion of a locomotive boiler, one of the Beyer Peacock type, that was reused in this orientation after it replacement. Detailed measurements will be necessary before final confirmation of this can be made. For more on this, find the full story on our blog.