Ulster Folk and Transportation Museum

Disclaimer: The pictures aren't the best since I only brought along my iPhone...

Paul had all of the ISA students meet up early on this decent Saturday morning to travel by train to the Ulster Folk and Transportation Museum. Paige, Kelsey, Elise, Briana, and I met with him and walked down to the train station. There were not many people about, so we had the short ride mostly to ourselves.  

Upon arrival, we walked straight to the Transportation Museum.  Upon first entering the massive first room of this museum, you are encountered by many trains.  There were locomotives and also many other types of cars they would have pulled.  Mainly, there were passenger cars.  There were different cars that reflected the different classes of people that would have ridden in them.  Scattered throughout the trains were many scale models.  There were models of the trains themselves, ships, and even a model of an old-time local mining town.  Another interesting sight in this room (that I was unfortunately unable to take a picture of) was a two person bicycle that could be used to ride down the tracks!  We wanted to try it out, but it had a do not touch sign that would not have allowed us to.


 

The next area of the Transportation museum was an exhibit dedicated to Titanic. In the very center, there was this a really amazing display.  If you haven't figured this out yet, I really like scale models.  I'm not sure why, just something about something so small that looks just like something life-size draws my interest.  Anyhow, this display showed Titanic as she was sinking.  I've seen copious models, movies, and pictures like this, but what was really amazing about this display in particular were the groups of tiny people in each corner.  These showed the number of people that died and the number of people that lived for each class, first, second, and third, and the crew.  From comparing, there seemed to be about the same number of people saved from each class, but the number of people that died varied greatly.  Many more third class passengers died than first class, but there were also many more third class passengers on board.  The most crew died during this great tragedy, likely because they were trying to save the passengers and the ship.

 






The final section of the Transportation museum was dedicated to transportation via land vehicle.  There were all the different sorts of buses used in the UK.  There were buses that seemed to be some of the first buses to ever be used.  There were horse drawn carriages to where this type of transportation started from. Also, one section had various random types of transportation and delivery vehicles, such as a milk truck.







The final section had cars.  From the old carriage like cars up to more recent cars.  Of course, there was a DeLorean, since the factory for the said DeLorean was in Belfast.  The car was only developed for about 2 years.  Due to some rather odd design ideas and a slump in the American automotive market (the car was being developed for the United States), this now infamous car did not go far, other than the Back to the Future movie of course.  Also, here is a picture of a three wheeled car, which has starred in several good episodes of Top Gear.

 

This then lead to the exit of this part of the Transportation museum.  There was another section down from it, likely with airplanes.  We decided though not to go to that part since the day was getting short, and to go ahead and walk over to the Folk museum.  This part was more of a small town than a museum per-say.  The buildings were antique buildings from other areas of Northern Ireland that were disassembled and reassembled here to create a complete picture of what life would have been like.  We went in several old cottages.  In one, we meet a lady that told us all about the history of that particular cottage.  She was very nice, and shared much information.  We also looked in an old church.  Instead of pews, there were little separated booths.  Unfortunately there was no one there that could tell us why there were booths, so that's something interesting to try to discover!

Once we left here, we took the train back home to Belfast to relax and get ready for another full week!

Titanic

This year is the 100 year anniversary of Titanic.  Since Titanic was built in Belfast, there are many celebrations for the accomplishment of the building of this ship.  One of which was the exhibit.  Also, Titanic Belfast will be opening this year.  Titanic Belfast is a building with everything relating to this great ship inside. During the month of April, many celebrations will be occurring here in Belfast during the Titanic Festival.  You may ask, "Why celebrate a ship that ended in such tragedy?"  I've the answer put thus:  Titanic was the largest, most luxurious vessel ever built during her time.  Therefore, of course the city would celebrate on of its greatest achievements in recent history.  There is always more to discuss about this famous ship, but I'm sure I will be talking about her much more as time goes by.