In 1925 the Author made a special pilgrimage to
Portstewart for no other purpose than to see this engine and her
two veteran sisters of 1882 and 1883. He found them all in perfect
order, literally as good as new, and had the pleasure of driving
No. 3 several times. What astonished him most about them was their
silent and smooth running (in spite of the appalling condition of
the track), for since he had last seen steam trams he had forgotten
these virtues in the racket and jolting to which twenty years of
electric trams had accustomed him. The track had become so bad that
towards the end of the same year, 1925, the Northern Counties
Committee of the London Midland and Scottish Railway, who owned the
line, condemned it and removed it early in 1926, replacing the
trams by omnibuses.
Kitson & Co. Ltd.