Titanic Museum

David's sister, her husband, and their daughter Maisie came to visit for the weekend. Yesterday, we went to the Titanic Museum, which is at the dockworks where the ship was built. I'm not a huge fan of the modern museum because it's a bit like a mall--a lot of noise, and giant video screens, and interactive panels, and zig zaggy floor designs. I'm easily overwhelmed and the modern museum experience is a bit much for me.

Having said that, I liked the ride we went on (there has to be a ride), that takes you through a smaller mock-up of the Arrol gantry, a massive erector set structure used to build cruise ships. It gave a glimpse of what it was like to work on the giant ships. It was, ahem, riveting. I kill myself.

I find myself drawn to the panels about Belfast's history as a manufacturing town (linen, ships, ropes, whiskey, tea, tobacco products, and the equipment used in linen factories and in shipbuilding). At the end were panels on modern Belfast, such as these three:

The museum does a good job of telling stories of some of the 1,517 souls who perished. It's not as good at explaining the decisions that led to the disaster. I did note one caption saying that the presence of a White Star Lines executive on board put extra pressure on the captain to get to New York in record time.