Ulster Transport Museum — Attraction in Northern Ireland

A great museum hampered slightly by it's harsh price, average cleanliness and staling exhibits. (Read full verdict below)

This museum is a big part of my childhood, and it is a great place to see the wonderful trains, cars, bikes and other interesting exhibits. It's easy to get parked, the museum has a nice style and presentation to it, you're able to climb on to every train and have good fun (easily the best part about it), you can interact with a lot of things (such as the Titanic area), the staff are nice and helpful and it's a great reflection on the history of British transport. There is however some downsides to it:

Price - Based on the negatives I've listed, this museum is simply not worth the price it's charging. Due to this, the price is a serious strike against it because the way it is right now doesn't justify it.

Cleanliness - This is one of the Museum's other problems. It's not terrible, but with a price like this it shouldn't be the case. Back in my childhood, I always used to bring up the fact there's dead spiders in the shop windows and dust everywhere. Returning to the museum in 2019, it's STILL the case! Why there's dead spiders I don't know. Entering the museum within 3 mins, I touch the wheel of the train and get an unpleasant sticky substance on my hand. Overall, the slightly dusty properties of the place and other niggles I mentioned makes the museum feel really dated which is shame.

Staling exhibits - The exhibits themselves are awesome, but there's a problem. The museum simply doesn't bring new things in, and hasn't done so in years. As a result, it feels stale in comparison to other museums which bring in new stuff. The Titanic area was an excellent addition (it did scrap the cool Bike area however which I miss). You won't need to come back to this place too often as a result.

Verdict: The Ulster Transport Museum is a huge nostalgia piece for me, and I recommend it for sure. It's does a lot of things right, but is let down by it's dated feel due to the mediocre maintenance, repetitive exhibits and it's cost for entry. I'm happy to see it's still going strong after all these years and I still enjoy the hell out of out, and if you love transport-related things you'll have...

Had a lovely day at the Ulster Transport Museum. Parking is above the museum, trees hide the museum from the view of the car park so you can not see the entrance until you park up and walk down. So do not doubt your in the wrong place 😁.

Disabled parking available, large car park. Toilets available inside. When we where there I only saw vending machines for drinks and snacks. However, there is tables both inside and out so you could bring food with you. There is a stretch of grass between two of the buildings that have picnic tables along side, each table has a place for a wheelchair. There is a hill down to the bottom building, bare this in mind if anyone has mobility issues as it just might take you a little longer on the way back. It is possible there maybe a café during the busy season.

Parms and wheelchairs can easily manoeuvre about the buildings as there is ramps throughout. That said you for obvious reasons need to ensure small children are held onto when going up on the train platforms as there is a gap between platforms and the trains (mind the gap). You are allowed on some of the trains as well as doorways of some buses, this however, is not wheelchair accessible due to the nature of the vehicles.

Staff where very friendly, museum was very clean with lots to look at. Our 21 month old son loved it, engaging for all ages. We will...

When we visited the American Folk Museum we bought an annual ticket for two adults which allows us to visit all 4 museums as many times as we like which was cost effective as we have bought a few visitors there and it allowed us to visit here for nothing.

It’s a short walk from the car park to the main building. On entering we were greeted by a very cheerful and helpful member of staff.

You go through some doors onto an elevated walkway and then follow the ramp down to the trains, another walkway takes you further down to the buses/ trams and another to the cars.

We spent over an hour and a half just exploring this area and didn’t have time to go and explore the other building.

My travelling companion has some mobility issues but I was allowed to drive my car down to where he was to save him the walk back up to the car park.

Overall a very interesting & enjoyable experience. If we had another hour to spare we would have looked at the rest of the exhibition.

We stopped and had a coffee from a vending machine, it was bitter and tasted horrible, two sips and we left it; don’t waste your money...