Malta Railway Blog

Here you’ll find all the latest news and discoveries. There’s plenty to see, including many research updates covering investigations that have helped inform the main pages on this site, and odd stories that we’ve not been able to fit in elsewhere. Have fun exploring.

A puzzle at Hamrun Works

This is a well known photo of the Malta Railway engineering works, taken in 1912 as part of a series of promotional photographs intended for[…]

Newly found photo rewrites locomotive’s history

Something of a curve-ball for the history of the Malta Railway has appeared recently on the internet; a new historical photo has emerged of engine[…]

Locomotive survivor?

It’s been recorded, photographed several times, but is it more than it looks? It’s a tall rivetted cylinder at the back of the engineering works[…]

Why Malta Railway engines all faced Mdina

There’s often discussion of why all the Malta Railway locomotives faced the same direction, towards Mdina. Even locomotive No.4, which faced the opposite direction for[…]

New interpretation of Floriana’s hidden history

Since we first published this article new evidence has come to light. It supports much of what we merely guessed at here, but with some[…]

Malta Railway II – Rapid Light Transport

At the old station in Birkirkara last week, the Government of Malta recently went live with a bold new strategy to transport: Malta in Motion.[…]

St Rocco Races reveals more

This photo was sold as a 1950s view of races at Notabile, but is in fact the St Rocco races held in August outside the[…]

6 hours in 70 seconds: Malta Railway trains in 1908

After A LOT of wrangling with various apps, I’ve animated the first six hours of operation of the railway. This starts at 4:20 in the[…]

Heading Home

This is an undated but important view looking up Racecourse Road towards Saqqajja Hill. A karozzin waits for fares while several others are already half[…]

Posed over Princess Melita Road

Yet another brilliant and informative historic photo of the Malta Railway has just turned up out of the blue. It shows the view looking north[…]