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.

Tunnel drawbridge update

Since first publishing a new analysis of the evidence for the ‘lift bridge’ in the Floriana railway tunnel, new information has come to light. From a private[…]

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[…]

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[…]

At the fringes of the fortifications

This 1975 photo shows the Malta Railway crossing out of the Floriana Lines, albeit long after the trains last ran. The glacis was backfilled and[…]

A tale of two stations (or more)

Floriana station remains the most enigmatic and elusive feature of the Malta Railway. It was the second underground station on the line after Valletta, supposedly[…]

Boring details.

A detailed record drawing of the digging of Floriana tunnel helps understand how it was engineered. The original drawing uses a colour code to track[…]

Floriana station vents

The photographer in the above image here must be stood almost outside the station building at Floriana looking back at the Wignacourt water tower, The[…]

Following Floriana tunnel

A good quality photo of Floriana from the collections of the V&A museum reveals the chain of ventilation shafts over the Malta Railway tunnel. They[…]

Please use the stairs

Floriana, the second underground station on the Malta railway, lies directly below the rectangular opening in front of the Methodist church in this 1930 photo.[…]

The long dark journey

Floriana’s epic tunnel The tunnel beneath Floriana was a challenging engineering feat. This diagram is based on an 1880 drawing in the Archives of Malta[…]