Hornby

Trains, railways, locomotives, track, points, signal boxes, water towers, engine sheds, turntables, and many more railway-related terms have always held a fascination for me.

I can't explain it at all but some of my best memories as a young child were the visits to The Model Shop in Upper Queen St, in Belfast where there were superb fully-modeled railway sets, and to the Ulster Transport Museum when it was situated in Witham St before it's eventual move to it's current site at Cultra. The feeling of climbing into the locomotives and carriages with their musty smells of leather and history is very evocative of an earlier age. Or perhaps it's genetic, as both my maternal grandfather and his father worked in the locomotive works in Horwich, near Bolton in Lancashire. Who knows? Anyhow, I love to be on, in or around trains.

These are relatively new Spanish-built Northern Ireland Railways (Translink) trains. The one on the left is pulling into Bangor station.