I recently came across a very rare photograph in a British newspaper – The Shropshire Star. It showed what I think is the only steam locomotive there that had the name ‘Malta’.

Built, most likely, in 1903,it was one of the very first few of the Atbara class (only) differing from earlier locomotives of this wheel design.

It had an improved tapered boiler and straight side plates, as can be seen in the photograph. There were other technical innovations, also helping to make it one of the fastest and most powerful engines of its time.

On May 9, 1904, an identical locomotive of this class, ‘City of Truro’, was reputedly the first steam engine to travel in excess of 100 mph. These locomotives, including ‘Malta’ (one of the first to be built), were sturdy workers on the Great Western Railway, often pulling express passenger trains, virtually at similar speeds.

After about 25 years or so of busy work, all members of the class were withdrawn between October 1927 and May 1931.Rather sadly, the one Atbara loco surviving in renovated working condition, in the York Railway Museum, is not the ‘Malta’, though a very close ‘brother’.

Still, it’s nice to know that the ‘Malta’ was such an excellent performer and served so many people for so long.