Arms hotel at Portrush and in 1883 formed a separate company to manage what was renamed the Northern Counties Hotel. Situated on an elevated site, the hotel overlooked the Atlantic Ocean at front and back. With more than one hundred rooms, it was intended to accommodate high-class tourists visiting the Giant's Causeway. The hotel was enlarged and improved in 1884 and 1892 and in 1902 the BNCR purchased the freehold outright from the Earl of Antrim. A new hotel was built in Belfast as part of the York Road station reconstruction with the intention of capturing trade from long-distance travellers as it was convenient to the cross-channel steamer berths. Designed by Berkeley Dean Wise and directly connected to the station, the unimaginatively named Station Hotel opened in 1898. In addition to the railway-operated hotels, arrangements were made during the 1890s with the independent Olderfleet hotel in Larne and the Antrim Arms and Marine hotels in Ballycastle for the issue of combined railway and hotel tickets. The Holden train The Holden train was a new concept in Irish tourism. In 1902, A.W. Holden, a Larne hotelier who had hired trains from the BNCR for his summer tours, approached the railway to provide him with a special train. York Road works built the all first class four-car train. Three of the coaches were saloons and the fourth was a restaurant car, all being furnished to a high standard. They were bogie vehicles with corridor connections; the lower body panels were finished in match boarding and the end doors were recessed in the manner of Pullman cars. Two six-wheel vans were fitted with corridor connections to work with the train. The train entered service in 1903 shortly before the end of the BNCR's independent career. Based at the Laharna Hotel, Larne, Holden's tour visited most of the popular tourist attractions in north-eastern Ireland over a six-day period. During this time, it covered some of railway travel and a further by road. The tours ran until the outbreak of World War I. Accidents The early years of the company were relatively free from serious incidents but as traffic increased and the system became busier, weaknesses in less than adequate operating procedures were exposed and a number of accidents occurred. Board of Trade inspectors investigated these and reported on the causes and recommended appropriate corrective actions. The injury rates were low but sadly there were