The

Northern Counties Committee 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 ...

(NCC) Class X was a solitary

diesel-hydraulic A diesel locomotive is a type of railway locomotive in which the prime mover is a diesel engine. Several types of diesel locomotives have been developed, differing mainly in the means by which mechanical power is conveyed to the driving wheels ...

shunting (switcher) locomotive built by

Harland and Wolff Harland & Wolff is a British shipbuilding company based in Belfast, Northern Ireland. It specialises in ship repair, shipbuilding and offshore construction. Harland & Wolff is famous for having built the majority of the ocean liners for the W ...

(H&W) for service in the NCC's yards and at

Belfast Belfast ( , ; from ga, Béal Feirste , meaning 'mouth of the sand-bank ford') is the capital and largest city of Northern Ireland, standing on the banks of the River Lagan on the east coast. It is the 12th-largest city in the United Kingdo ...

docks. It was one of several pioneering designs of diesel locomotive produced by H&W under their ''Harlandic'' trademark during the 1930s and 1940s.

History

There was only one member of Class X, No.17. It was built by Harland and Wolff in Belfast and delivered to the NCC in 1936 under a lease arrangement; it was not actually taken into stock until 1941 when the NCC purchased it. No.17 had an 0-6-0 wheel arrangement and was powered by an eight-cylinder diesel engine developing at 1200

rpm Revolutions per minute (abbreviated rpm, RPM, rev/min, r/min, or with the notation min−1) is a unit of rotational speed or rotational frequency for rotating machines. Standards ISO 80000-3:2019 defines a unit of rotation as the dimensionl ...

. Transmission was via a

torque converter A torque converter is a type of fluid coupling that transfers rotating power from a prime mover, like an internal combustion engine, to a rotating driven load. In a vehicle with an automatic transmission, the torque converter connects the power ...

and a

jackshaft A jackshaft, also called a ''countershaft'', is a common mechanical design component used to transfer or synchronize rotational force in a machine. A jackshaft is often just a short stub with supporting bearings on the ends and two pulleys, gear ...

final drive mounted ahead of the leading coupled wheels. In addition, there was a two-speed gearbox with ratios of 5.76:1 and 19.52:1 giving top speeds of and respectively in both forward and reverse. As delivered, it had its maker's trade name ''Harlandic'' on a plate just below the front headlight. No.17 spent its career working out of the limelight on the Belfast Harbour Commissioners’ lines at Belfast and within the NCC's own yards. It survived

Ulster Transport Authority The Ulster Transport Authority (UTA) ran rail and bus transport in Northern Ireland from 1948 until 1966. Formation and consolidation The UTA was formed by the Transport Act 1948, which merged the Northern Ireland Road Transport Board (NIRTB ...

(UTA) ownership and entered

Northern Ireland Railways NI Railways, also known as Northern Ireland Railways (NIR) ( ga, Iarnród Thuaisceart Éireann); and for a brief period Ulster Transport Railways (UTR), is the railway operator in Northern Ireland. NIR is a subsidiary of Translink, whose parent ...

stock in 1967 but saw little or no work before it was scrapped in mid-1970.

Livery

Under NCC ownership, No.17 was painted black with red bufferbeams. It had brass number plates with red backgrounds which bore a highly stylised "17" in the same manner as the NCC steam engines. The initials "NCC" were applied to the side panels in shaded gold serif capitals. When the UTA took over, No.17 was repainted black with vermilion and yellow lining. The UTA roundel replaced the "NCC" on the side panels.

References

* * * {{Ireland Diesel Locomotives X Diesel locomotives of Northern Ireland C locomotives 5 ft 3 in gauge locomotives Scrapped locomotives Diesel-hydraulic locomotives