was made on restoring the permanent way and air-raid damage at York Road station was repaired. The company's hotels, which had closed during the war years, were reopened to the public by mid-1947 although the Midland Station Hotel in Belfast, which had suffered severe damage during the 1941 Blitz, was not fully operational. Paths and bridges at Glenariff were repaired but the Gobbins cliff path, on which maintenance had ceased in 1942, would not reopen under NCC management. The Northern Ireland Government resumed its deliberations into the transport situation that had been postponed during the war. It published a White Paper in 1946 that proposed the amalgamation of the BCDR, the NCC and the NIRTB, together with that portion of the GNR(I) which lay in Northern Ireland, into a single organisation to be known as the Ulster Transport Authority (UTA). In the event, however, the GNR(I) was to be excluded from the provisions of The Transport Act (Northern Ireland) 1948 and when the UTA came into existence on 1 April 1948, only the BCDR and the NIRTB would be absorbed at first; the NCC's British connection meant that there was a delay in its acquisition by the new organisation. Nationalisation, centenary and sale On 1 January 1948, the LMS was nationalised and passed to the Railway Executive of the British Transport Commission. The NCC became known as the Railway Executive (NCC) and was operationally part of the London Midland Region of British Railways. The NCC celebrated the centenary of the opening of the Belfast and Ballymena Railway on 11 April 1948 with a minor flourish. An illustrated booklet was printed and distributed to customers and staff. It included a chronology of the NCC and its predecessors, a history of the steamer services, a route description of the Main Line and a map of the system. The BBC Northern Ireland Home Service broadcast a centenary programme on 12 April; it was narrated by John D. Stewart, the writer and dramatist. Under the provisions of The Transport Act (Northern Ireland) 1948, the Northern Ireland Government purchased the NCC in 1949 for £2,668,000, and the NCC became part of the Ulster Transport Authority from 1 April 1949. Today (2007) the former NCC main line from Belfast to Londonderry, the Larne line and the Portrush branch remain open and are operated by Northern Ireland Railways. The upgrading of the Belfast to Londonderry by Northern