Msida remains – The Malta Railway

Msida – Birkirkara

Urban inundations

Msida was the first of the standard ‘intermediate’ stations out of Valletta, effectively halts with few facilities. These were designed with a basic stone building with a metal canopy sheltering a bench for waiting passengers, and a small office with a window for issuing tickets. They also incorporated a guard room for the staff attending to the chains at the level crossings each station was built beside.

The small platform at Msida is marked by the widened section of pavement and parking bays on the right in this view back towards Hamrun. The trees replace those once planted along the platform.

Msida’s platform is marked by this wider section of pavement before it reduces in width again, marking the Hamrun end of the station.

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At the eastern end of the former platform a vacant plot shows how much the agricultural land has been built-up from this same view during the railway’s time.

Fragments along the highway

Despite official regulations discouraging the stopping of trains anywhere other than official stations, it was common for trains to pick up passengers elsewhere. Guard huts were the most likely of these locations, that at Port des Bombes being frequented by those who disliked Floriana’s underground station.

Aerial view looking west towards Birkirkara: 1. The site of Msida station. 2. Surviving railway cutting wall. 3. Further railway cutting wall. 4. Guard hut No.6 and Santa Venera platform. 5. Birkirkara station

Looking in the direction of Rabat, a surviving section of railway cutting wall on the north side of Triq il-Kappillan Mifsud. Track level would have been a little lower than the pavement. The kerb is roughly the centre-line of the track alignment.

Another, more dilapidated, section of cutting wall looking back towards Valletta.

Guard hut No.6 was another of these stops, described as an “optional stoppage at the request of passengers at level crossing No.6 where there is no station but only the crossing keepers shelter”. It was close to the village of Santa Venera, then classed as part of Birkirkara. The village was expanding quickly by the end of the 19^th Century, and by 1900 more passengers were recorded alighting at level crossing No.6 than at the official stop at Msida less than half a mile away; That it was recognised in statistics gave the stop a degree of official sanction.

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Santa Venera crossing was located where today’s Trejqa tal-Ferrovija meets Triq Salvu Psaila. The angle of the road junction is the same between these two views.

A rail set into the ground on the corner of Triq Sant’ Antnin and Triq Salvu Psaila, near the location of guard hut 7, is likely to be the post on which the chain protecting the road was fastened ahead of oncoming trains. The track alignment towards Valletta follows the road on the far left.

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The rail looking towards Birkirkara. Carefully shaped at the top, and with a made hole, it has clearly intentional features.

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The view east up Fleur-de-lys road at the entrance to Birkirkara station. Even after a century, the statue niche remains unchanged.

Hamrun remans

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Birkirkara remains