out with gold and vermilion lining. The Portstewart Tramway owned 3 locomotives and four other vehicles The Committee owned three hotels: Midland Station Hotel, Belfast; Northern Counties Hotel, Portrush; and Laharna Hotel, Larne All details in this section are from Railway Year Book 1912 (Railway Publishing Company) Tourism The NCC continued the BNCR's policy of encouraging tourism. The Belfast hotel, now known as the Midland Station Hotel continued to prosper and additional bedrooms were added in 1905. In 1906 additional accommodation was added to the rear of the Northern Counties Hotel at Portrush. The work increased the number of rooms to 150 and provided a splendid new ballroom. The NCC acquired a third hotel, the Laharna Hotel at Larne, from the Holden company in 1909 and with it the Holden train. Glenariff continued to be a popular tourist destination and Sunday trains were run on the Cushendall line during summer to meet public demand. The Gobbins cliff path on Islandmagee had not been completed in BNCR days. While it had been intended to carry the path three miles (5 km) to Heddle's Port, the engineering and other construction works this would entail were considered to be too expensive. Instead a final extension of the path only as far as the Seven Sisters caves opened in 1908. Steamer services The Larne-Stranraer steamer service continued to prosper. A new steamer, the Princess Maud, was delivered in May 1904. She was the first turbine steamer to operate on any of the cross-channel services on the Irish Sea. A further steamer arrived in 1912. The Princess Victoria was broadly similar to the Maud but with more powerful engines and improved passenger accommodation. Meanwhile, the Midland Railway's Heysham-Belfast service began operations in September 1904 with three new ships, , Donegal and . The NCC was less involved in this route than that to Stranraer but managed the facilities at the Donegall Quay berth in Belfast and provided booking facilities both in Belfast and through booking from its stations. World War I The NCC was relatively unaffected by the events of World War I. Most cross-channel traffic was carried on the principal Kingstown-Holyhead route. Conscription was never applied in Ireland but 318 of the NCC's employees enlisted in the armed forces of whom 60 were to be killed during the hostilities. In September 1914 the NCC undertook to build seventy road transport wagons at York Road