As a result, a second act was obtained with the work completed 1853. The Malton and Driffield company subscribed £35,000 towards the scheme with the YN&BR contributing the other part. In the same time period (1850s) the York and North Midland Railway held £40,000 worth of shares in the M&DJR. The engineer was John Cass Birkinshaw, the assistant engineer Alfred Lamert Dickens. In addition to the mainline from New Malton (on the York and Scarborough Railway) to Great Driffield (on the Hull and Selby Bridlington branch) the plans included a branch from Frodingham Bridge on the River Hull. On the original plan the minimum curve was with maximum gradients of 1 in 60, and 1 in 158. The line also included a tunnel of . The first of the line from Malton included severe gradients, ascending, including at 1 in 70, and required heavy civil engineering works. The highest point of the line was within the tunnel, where the southbound gradient changed from 1 in 70 up to 1 in 85 down. As built the line included a number of timber bridges, and a timber viaduct at Wharram. Land had been acquired for a double track line but only a single track was laid, using weight rails, on cross sleepered track. The line was to be worked by the York, Newcastle and Berwick Railway, under the same rules as the Thirsk and Malton Line. Work on the line began in 1847, and by 1849 over £100,000 had been expended on the construction of the line, the majority on works (£52,921) and permanent way (£31,597). The bursting of the speculative bubble of the Railway Mania in the late 1840s adversely affected the line's prospects. By early 1849 the company's calls on shares were in arrears. Financial problems caused the company to abandon the construction of a double track line and only construct a single line. In 1850 the company applied to parliament to alter the path of the line; the amendment act was passed in 1851. By 1851 about half () of the line had been completed as a single line; the branch was by then in abeyance. In early 1852 the calls on shares were still in arrears requiring the company to funds by loans. An estimated £65,000 was required for the completion of the line; £40,000 had been borrowed by late January 1852; over £55,000 by mid 1852.