THE STEAMING SIXTIES No.11 The Ulster Transport Authority

Description

In the 1960s railways in Ireland were run by the Ulster Transport Authority (UTA) in the North and Córas Iompair Éireann (CIE) in the Republic. Like British Railways and CIE, the UTA was the result of nationalisation of the railways and it also included bus services and road haulage under its remit. Although obviously not part of British Railways the UTA network was, in a sense, the United Kingdom’s seventh railway region. At the time that the photographs in this book were taken, in 1963 and 1964, there was still a lot of railway activity to see and a fleet of steam locomotives that was very much to the British taste. The most numerous NCC locomotives, the WT class 2-6-4Ts and the W class 2-6-0s, clearly showed their LMS Derby roots. The ex-GNR(I) locomotives were of particular interest. A number of them were 4-4-0s, a wheel arrangement that was becoming rare in Britain at the time, and some of them still carried the GNR(I) blue livery and names. Steam locomotives could be seen hauling express, local and freight trains. There were two busy operational steam sheds in Belfast, at Adelaide and York Road and, among others, a roundhouse at Portadown. It was all shortly to end, but with the pictures in this book we can relive a little the swansong of steam in Ireland.