[WATCH] Malta railway enthusiast recreates 3D digital model of Ħamrun station

One enthusiast of the Malta Railway has restored the Ħamrun railway station to its former glory… but in digital form.

UK architectural historian David Martyn, 48, a conservation architect working in the public sector in Bristol, accurately reconstructed Ħamrun’s historic railway station using original plans from Malta National Archives and a wealth of historic photographs.

Martyn built the model to illustrate how the station, engine sheds, and old engineering works appeared in their heyday.

The old railway station connected what is now the Malta Dairy Products depot, to what is today the Mile End Road where the train passed through after emerging from beneath the St Philip’s Bastion in Floriana.

Looking down on the station in the directio n of Mdina. Carriage sheds, the engineering works, and the engine shed dominate the foreground. A train for Valletta pauses its journey on the down platform

The entrance to the engineering works and technical school was behind an impressive arched façade. This view looks across the tracks from the engine shed with one of the workmen’s carriages waiting to be taken into the works for maintenance

One of the four Beyer-Peacock built locomotives idles on the second platform in front of Hamrun station building

Looking across Hamrun station with a train from Valletta standing at the platform. The engineering works stand behind the red-painted station building

The Malta Railway Beyer Peacock Engine No.7 pulls out of Valletta Terminus (Photo courtesy of The Malta Railway Foundation)

Many of the buildings survive today shared between the headquarters of the 1st Hamrun Scout Group and the MDP. Although some of these buildings have recently been restored many have disappeared it is no longer easy to appreciate how the station looked when the railway operated, and its station gardens were a celebrated feature.     

Martyn, who has continued to visit Malta since birth and still has family living there, is passionate about historic architecture and has researched and written extensively in his chosen field.  

“Back in the 1980s I was fascinated by the railway, persuading my mother to drive me round all the historic stations, exploring and photographing them whenever we were on the Island visiting family. The love for Malta and its railway hasn’t dimmed,” Martyn said.

 “This model feels like the culmination of a 40-year obsession. It wasn’t ever meant to turn into such a big project, but once I started it felt important to get it right and share it to bring about more understanding of this aspect of Malta’s history.”   

Opening in 1883, Ħamrun station was once the hub of Malta’s 7-mile-long railway linking Valletta with Mdina. Here, locomotives and carriages were maintained and fuel, and trains formed every morning to dispatch up and down the line. Before closure in 1931, it was the busiest of the ten stations on the railway, with the most complicated layout. The new model is intended to be the most accurate impression of the Ħamrun site so far. 

Having spent so long on the modelling, Martyn now hopes to raise awareness of the Malta Railway and intends to share the model, illustrations, and animations with the Birkirkara Railway Museum. He believes that here, in the hands of the Malta Railway Foundation, they might help explain the lost history of the railway in new ways.

Now that he is satisfied with his model of Ħamrun, Martyn has begun another model of Mdina’s Notabile station. “Again, this happened almost accidentally after being encouraged by other enthusiasts; I got carried away. It’s a more complicated station to understand, with a lot of missing history that needs to be uncovered along the way.”