The Northern Counties Committee (NCC) was a railway that served the north-east of Ireland. It was built to Irish gauge () but later acquired a number of 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 (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 & Scottish Railway (LMS). 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 (UTA) 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 to Stranraer ferry route between Northern Ireland and Scotland which gained importance in World War II. Belfast and Ballymena Railway Proposals There had been a proposal by the Davison brothers of Ballymena to build a railway between Belfast and Ballymena in 1836 but this came to nothing due, firstly, to the inability to identify a suitable route out of Belfast that did not include excessive gradients and, secondly, an economic downturn. However, in 1844, the same promoters, in association with Sinclair Mulholland, William Coates and John McNeile of Belfast drew up a new scheme that included a branch to Carrickfergus. Charles Lanyon was employed to carry out preliminary surveys of the proposed route. In fact, two routes out of Belfast were surveyed. One was an inland route beginning at the Antrim Road and skirting Cavehill. The other started at the junction of York Road and Corporation Street; it ran north on an embankment across slob land on the western shore of Belfast Lough. To ease the gradient, it was necessary for the line to Ballymena to leave the Carrickfergus branch by means of a trailing junction from Belfast. Lanyon strongly favoured this latter coastal route and reported accordingly at a public meeting in Antrim courthouse on 20 May 1844. A motion was carried that a complete survey of the line was to be completed and that costs were to be defrayed by opening a subscription. A