What is a Thumper

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THUMPER

What is a Thumper

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What is a Thumper.??? Afbeelding A Thumper is the nickname given to Diesel Electric Multiple Units (DEMU) introduced in the Late 1950’s on the Southern Region of British Railways for non-Electrified lines. They were affectionately known as Thumpers because of the noise produced by their large, slow reving, English Electric diesel engines.
Most of the Southern Region (south of London) was Electric, with power from a 3rd rail at 750v DC. The southern region preferred diesel-electric units as opposed to Diesel Machanical Multiple Units (DMMU) due to their similarity to Electric Multiple Units (EMU) on the region. Afbeelding One main line though, London to Hastings on the South Coast was non-electrified and therefore required diesel traction, and due to its narrow clearance because of bridges and tunnels, a special class was produced of narrow bodied units, The Hastings Unit. There is one of these units that has been preserved to main line standerds.
See here for pictures.
http://www.hastingsdiesels.co.uk/
http://www.squarewheels.org.uk/rly/Hastings/

Other units where produced to the standerd British Railways width, Class 205 (Hampshire Units) & Class 207 (Sussex Units) .Also there was the Class 206 ‘Tadpole Units’ which were formed from 2 ex- slim hastings units and one wider ex- electric unit coach to run across country rout of 100km from the towns of Reading and Tonbridge.
There is some more history here. http://www.hsups.org.uk/history.htm
There are a few Class 205’s & 207’s preserved on various heritage lines, they only stopped mainline service last year after 50 years passenger service.
Here some more pictures.
http://community.fotopic.net/search/sim ... P&txt=demu
http://www.anteater.freeuk.com/MUgallery/demu.htm

Here you can here sounds of them.
http://www.angelfire.com/sc/loadreg/rm/soundsmedia.html

Here are pictures of our local preserve Thumper on the local heritage railway, the Watercress line close to where I live.
http://www.watercressline.co.uk/tw/pages/dieselco.htm
Here is another one at another preserved line…The Lavender line.
http://the-shed433.fotopic.net/c639266.html

There are a lot of DEMU fans in the UK, not as many as steam of course, but I will tell you about them on another occasion.
I hope you find this interesting.
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