page_title: Northern Counties Committee
section_title: Preserved vehicles
hierarchical_section_title: Northern Counties Committee / Preserved vehicles
caption_attribution_description: English: NCC Class U2 4-4-0 steam locomotive 74 Dunluce Castle in the Ulster Transport Museum, Cultra, Co. Down, Northern Ireland
context_page_description: The Northern Counties Committee was a railway that served the north-east of Ireland. It was built to Irish gauge but later acquired a number of 914 mm narrow gauge lines. It had its origins in the Belfast and Ballymena Railway that opened to traffic on 11 April 1848.
  The NCC itself was formed on 1 July 1903 as the result of the Midland Railway of England taking over the Belfast and Northern Counties Railway, which the Belfast and Ballymena Railway had become. At the 1923 Grouping of British railway companies, the Committee became part of the London Midland & Scottish Railway. After the nationalisation of Britain's railways in 1948 the NCC was briefly part of the British Transport Commission, which sold it to the Ulster Transport Authority in 1949.
  The BNCR and its successors recognised the potential value of tourism and were influential in its development throughout Northern Ireland. They were able to develop and exploit the advantages of the Larne – Stranraer ferry route between Northern Ireland and Scotland which gained importance in World War II.
context_section_description: A number of NCC vehicles have been preserved.
  Class U2 4-4-0 No.74 Dunluce Castle is on display at the Ulster Folk and Transport Museum, Cultra, County Down.
  Class WT 2-6-4T steam locomotive No.4 is owned by the Railway Preservation Society of Ireland at Whitehead which operates it on special excursion trains on the Irish railway network. The society also owns a number of NCC carriages.
  Railcar No.1 is stored in a dilapidated condition at the Railway Preservation Society of Ireland site at Whitehead.
  Coaches Nos.238 and 241, former Midland Railway vehicles which had been transferred to the NCC from the LMS as replacements for stock destroyed in the air raid of 4 May 1941, were repatriated in 2004 and 2005 respectively and are at the Embsay and Bolton Abbey Steam Railway, Embsay, near Skipton, Yorkshire.
  Portstewart Tramway Kitson 0-4-0 tram locomotive No.1 was an early candidate for preservation, crossing the Irish Sea in 1939, and is in the collection of the Streetlife Museum of Transport, Kingston-upon-Hull, Yorkshire.
  Portstewart Tramway Kitson 0-4-0 tram locomotive No.2 is on display at the Ulster Folk and Transport Museum, Cultra, County Down.
  An ex-NCC Lister internal combustion engined platform truck may also be seen at the Ulster Folk and Transport Museum.
  LMS (NCC) 36 ton steam breakdown crane (Cowans Sheldon and Co., 1931) - now Ireland's largest - and a number of vans may be found at the Downpatrick & County Down Railway, Downpatrick, County Down.
caption: Dunluce Castle
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