BEER BEFORE BELFAST

I left you in Hillsborough. A couple of miles to the north is the small city of Lisburn and, to the west of that was a brewpub, the Down Royal Inn.

Sadly, it no longers brews and may not even exist. So, onwards to Lisburn, where we find the Irish Linen Museum with Christ Church Cathedral behind (Creative Commons License).

Lisburn station, on the main Dubln-Belfast line, was once controlled from this signal box.

Some NIR suburban trains are seen with the semaphore signals in the early '80s.

The semaphores had gone by 1986.

A northern suburb of Lisburn is where one can find Hilden Brewery, still going strong.

Now we venture around the great city of Belfast, to Cultra Halt on the Belfast to Bangor line. DEMU 8788 arrives.

Cultra is home to the Ulster Folk Museum, part of which houses the Ulster Transport Museum, which is well worth visiting. Here are a few of the exhibits:

First, a lovely Leyland lorry.

Pride of place goes to NCC No. 74 'Dunluce Castle'.

Next, a County Donegal diesel named 'Phoenix'.

Here's a GNR railbus, an unusual vehicle.

 A little Simplex narrow gauge loco.

A Peckett that was once employed at Larne Aluminium Works.

The museum also houses the Fintona horse tram

There's an electric tram from Belfast.

Finally, a Belfast trolleybus.

That was just a few items from the collection. Now it's time to move on to Holywood, on the southern shore of Belfast Lough. A DEMU of NIR departs.

Just across the road is a good pub, the Dirty Duck.

I'll leave you there until the next post, which will see us in Belfast.