Editing Northern Counties Committee (section)

==Midland Railway (Northern Counties Committee)==
[[Image:Midland arms.jpg|thumb|right|Midland Railway coat of arms.]]The amalgamation of the BNCR with the [[Midland Railway]] took place on 1 July 1903. The railway retained a great deal of autonomy and was run by a management committee based in Belfast – the Northern Counties Committee (NCC). Locomotive and rolling stock liveries remained very much as they had been under the BNCR except for the adoption of the Midland Railway coat of arms and NCC monogram.

The following railways became part of the MR(NCC) (opening date(s)/amalgamation date):
* [[County Donegal Railways Joint Committee]] Londonderry and Strabane section, formerly part of the narrow gauge [[Donegal Railway Company|Donegal Railway]] ({{convert|14.25|mi|km|disp=semicolon}}) was vested in the MR (NCC) in May 1906.
* [[Limavady Railway|Limavady and Dungiven Railway]] ({{convert|10.75|mi|km|disp=semicolon}}) (July 1883/February 1907).

Total mileage in 1911 was {{convert|263.25|mi|km}}

Two steam [[railmotor]]s were obtained from Derby and entered service in 1905. Originally proposed for Belfast suburban services, the traffic department put them to work on Belfast-Ballymena stopping services. Hauling vans and horseboxes, they soon became worn out and were withdrawn in 1913.

Meanwhile, valuable iron ore traffic was obtained in 1907. Iron ore had been transported by road from the mines near Parkmore to [[Waterfoot, County Antrim|Waterfoot]] for shipment but the poor condition of the roads was making this impossible. The traffic was put on rail via Ballymena to Larne Harbour, 100 new wagons and two new locomotives were built to handle the 35 000 tons of ore that was to be transported annually.

The NCC purchased two [[Thornycroft]] motor char-a-bancs in 1905 and hired a third for at least one season. One was used to take guests at the Northern Counties Hotel on trips to the Giant's Causeway and other tourist attractions while the second provided a service between Parkmore, Glenariff Glen and [[Cushendall]]. The hired vehicle was used on tours of the Antrim Coast Road.

===Statistics – 1910===
* In 1910 the Committee owned 79 locomotives; 364 passenger train vehicles; two railmotor cars; and 2328 goods vehicles
* Locomotives were painted "invisible green" (a very dark bronze green that looked almost black) picked out with yellow, blue and vermilion lining; passenger rolling stock, lake, picked 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 {{convert|3|mi|km|spell=in}} 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, {{ship|TSS|Antrim|1904|2}}, ''Donegal'' and {{ship|TrSS|Londonderry|1904|2}}. 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 [[Dún Laoghaire|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 for the [[War Department (UK)|War Department]] and in October 1915 subcontracted work on munitions for Workman Clark & Co.

The war created severe shortages of permanent way materials and a number of little used sidings were lifted for the materials they yielded. It was also necessary to resort to using sleepers made from home-grown timber rather than the imported Baltic variety. Steel boiler tubes replaced copper and brass in locomotives for economy and a different pattern of uniform overcoat had to be sourced since the government had commandeered the wool crop.

Greencastle, the first station out of Belfast, closed in June 1916 because of competition from the extended Belfast tramways.

The NCC along with other Irish railways adopted [[Greenwich Mean Time]] in October 1916. This was 25 minutes ahead of Dublin or Irish time which had previously been used throughout Ireland.

The Belfast and Portrush hotels continued to function fairly normally although they had lost their French and German employees at the outbreak of war. The Laharna, on the other hand, was suffering from a shortage of tourists and was requisitioned by the army in 1917.

The steamer services were affected by the war. The ''Princess Victoria'' was requisitioned as a troop ship leaving the ''Princess Maud'' to operate the Larne-Stranraer mail service which was sometimes the only crossing available due to enemy submarine activity in the Irish Sea. The ''Princess Victoria'' returned to cross-channel service in 1920. The Heysham service was suspended in the latter part of the war and the steamer ''[[SS Donegal]]'' was sunk while on war service in 1917.

====Government control====
The railways in Great Britain had come under government control from the outbreak of war but those in Ireland had not. The trades unions believed that under control their members would achieve parity in wartime bonuses with cross-channel railwaymen and applied constant pressure to achieve this. Frustrated with a lack of progress the unions threatened to strike in December 1916 which prompted the government to agree to taking control of the Irish lines. On 22 December 1916 they came under Board of Trade supervision which acted through the Irish Railways Executive Committee (IREC).

The government paid compensation to the railways to bring their net yearly receipts up to those of 1913 subject to limitations on capital expenditure. The NCC had already been affected by virtue of its Midland Railway parent having been under control since 1914. The cost of war bonuses was also met by the government.

The tremendous consumption of coal by industry meant that less was available for Ireland and in March 1918 the Board of Trade ordered the Irish railways to cut their consumption by 20%. The NCC maintained its goods mileage but reduced passenger working by a quarter.

Control did not end with the [[Armistice with Germany (Compiègne)|Armistice]] in 1918. The IREC enforced the [[eight-hour day]] for railwaymen starting in January 1919. This resulted in the NCC having to employ an additional 158 men in the traffic department.

The newly created [[Department for Transport|Ministry of Transport]] assumed the powers of the IREC which ceased to function on 31 December 1919. Negotiations between the railways and the ministry for de-control and compensation continued throughout 1920 and early 1921 and governmental supervision came to an end on 15 August 1921.

===The troubles===
There was widespread political unrest in Ireland during the 1920s. The railways were prime targets although the NCC did not suffer as seriously as other lines. On 25 March 1921, wooden buildings at Crossroads, Cargan, Parkmore and Retreat on the Cushendall line were set on fire and completely destroyed. The same night the signal cabins at [[Killagan]] and [[Dunloy]] on the main line were destroyed by fire while that at [[Glarryford]] suffered minor damage.

Two trains that were crossing at [[Staffordstown]] on 29 June 1921 were held up by armed men who robbed mailbags. In a similar incident armed men stopped a train from Parkmore near Martinstown and again rifled mailbags.

On 3 May 1922 an attempt was made to set fire to coaches stabled at Limavady but was foiled by the prompt action of staff. A more serious arson attack on 19 May destroyed part of Ballymena station.

The only recorded attempt to damage the track itself was on 19 May when a bridge between Killagan and Dunloy was damaged by explosives. Repairs took four days during which time passengers had to pass the gap on foot.

Sadly two members of staff were murdered in Belfast. The first incident took place on the night of 14 April 1922 when a driver was shot near the engine shed and in the other a ganger was killed in broad daylight on 22 May. One other casualty was a police constable who was hit by a train while guarding Randalstown viaduct.

===Changed conditions===
The railways had regained control of their own finances in August 1921 and were again dependent on their own resources. However, a large number of former military lorries had come on to the second hand market and, with no system of licensing in place, anyone who wished could set up as a common carrier. In August 1921, James Cowie, the NCC's manager, estimated that 50 000 tons of goods traffic was being lost annually.

Ireland had been partitioned in 1921 and in May 1922 the newly created [[Executive Committee of the Privy Council of Northern Ireland|Northern Ireland government]] set up a commission to enquire into the railways operating in [[Northern Ireland]]. The majority report recommended continuing the existing system of private management but recommended several economies such as common use of wagons and plant. The minority report recommended nationalisation.

The unsatisfactory financial condition of all the companies was noted with only the NCC considered to be in a strong position by virtue with its British connections even though it receipts were markedly reduced. The committee recommended that the struggling Ballycastle Railway should be amalgamated with the NCC. The government took no action, being preoccupied with other matters.

Between 1913 and 1922 there had been a 26% reduction in passenger traffic and 25% less goods traffic. Receipts had increased by nearly 60% but working expenditure has risen by an alarming 112% and the necessity for economy was to become a dominant factor in operating the railway.