Please note that the content of this book primarily consists of articles available from Wikipedia or other free sources online. The Northern Counties Committee (NCC) was a railway that served the north-east of Ireland. Originally constructed to the Irish standard gauge of 5 ft 3 in (1600 mm), a number of 3 ft 0 in (914 mm) narrow gauge lines were acquired later. It had its origins in the Belfast and Ballymena Railway that opened to traffic on 11 April 1848. The NCC itself came into existence on 1 July 1903 as the result of the Midland Railway taking over the Belfast and Northern Counties Railway (BNCR), which the Belfast and Ballymena Railway had become. At the 1923 Grouping of British railway companies, the Committee became part of the London Midland and Scottish Railway (LMS). The line passed to the British Transport Commission with the nationalisation of the railways in Britain in 1948 and in the following year, 1949, it was sold to the Ulster Transport Authority (UTA).