British Rail Class 205
class of three-car diesel-electric multiple units
The British Rail Class 205 (3H) diesel-electric multiple units were built by BR at Eastleigh from 1957 to 1962, and in service for 47 years from BR Southern Region to Connex South Central and finally to the Southern franchise. They were eventually replaced by Class 171 Turbostar units.
Description
This class of unit was built in four different batches for use on different lines.
The Southern Region class 201 to 207 DEMUs are nicknamed 'Thumpers' owing to the noise they made while in motion.
The first batch of units, numbered 1101–1118, was built in 1957 as two-car units and classified as 2H. They were built for services in Hampshire on the non-electrified routes between Portsmouth Harbour, Salisbury and Andover and between Alton, Winchester and Southampton Terminus. The first units entered service in September 1957. However, owing to increasing passenger numbers, all eighteen units were strengthened to three cars in 1958 and 1969, with the addition of a centre trailer, and therefore were reclassified as 3H units. Upon the introduction of TOPS they were reclassified as Class 205. Some of these were later converted back to 2 car sets, but they retained their Class 205 designation.
The second batch of 2H units, numbered 1119–1122, was built as 2-car units in 1958.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “British Rail Class 205” as class of three-car diesel-electric multiple units. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 13, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q4970750. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1957, 1962, 1101 and 1118.
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This entry incorporates text from “British Rail Class 205” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.