It occurs to me that in my new mystery the railways play a substantial part, and yet I voluntarily live on an island which has none. During the British rule here, of course, they built one, but practically nothing remains of it. After all, Malta is so small you can walk from end to end in a day or two. The line was proposed in 1870 and opened in 1883. It was seven miles long, from the new capital Valletta to the old one Mdina. Not surprisingly it never prospered and finally died when the state got tired of subsidising it in 1931. (more…)