UK: Northern Ireland Railways (NIR) Class 80 'Thumper' DEMUs at Belfast and Portrush

Описание: Northern Ireland: A selection of clips showing Northern Ireland Railways Class 80 diesel electric multiple units at Belfast and Portrush. All clips recorded 9 May 2004.

Clip 1 - At Portrush, the 1227 to Coleraine departs.
Clip 2 (0:39) - At Belfast (Great Victoria Street), the 1505 from Derry/Londonderry is seen shortly after arrival.
Clip 3 (0:53) - At Belfast (Central), the 1742 from Belfast (Great Victoria Street) to Bangor is seen departing.
Clip 4 (1:33) - At Belfast (Central), the 1755 from Belfast (Great Victoria Street) to Derry/Londonderry arrives.
Clip 5 (2:14) - At Belfast (Central), the 1755 from Belfast (Great Victoria Street) to Derry/Londonderry is seen departing.
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The Class 80 is a type of diesel electric multiple unit formerly used by Northern Ireland Railways. They were affectionately nicknamed 'Thumpers' by rail enthusiasts due to the thumping noise their engines produced.

By the early 1970s the MEDs and units inherited from the Great Northern Railway (GNR) had been in service for 20 years, and the MPDs for 10 years. To replace these increasingly life-expired units, Northern Ireland Railways (NIR) placed an order with British Rail Engineering Limited (BREL) for 9 new DMUs. These were to be built as four 3-car and five 2-car sets and were delivered in 1974/75. Structurally, the new trains were based on the British Rail Mark 2b bodyshell, which NIR was already using for the Enterprise service. The new trains were classified as the Class 80.

In 2011, the entire Class 450 fleet, together with the remaining Class 80 units, was listed by NI Railways for disposal and the final Class 80 units were withdrawn from passenger service on Sunday 25 September 2011.

On Tuesday 27 March 2018, the Downpatrick and County Down Railway announced it was to preserve four 80 Class vehicles, consisting of two power cars 69 and 90, and two driving trailers 749 and 752. 69 and 749 have been painted in the original, as-delivered maroon and blue livery. In April it emerged that the campaign was endorsed by Pete Waterman, one of the most notable individuals in the world of railway preservation and owner of several locomotives, including at one point No. 4472 ''Flying Scotsman''. 69 is particularly notable for having worked the last Peace Train in 1995, an accolade which made it the subject of an episode of Chris Tarrant: Extreme Railways in 2019.
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NI Railways, also known as Northern Ireland Railways (NIR) and for a brief period Ulster Transport Railways (UTR), is the railway operator in Northern Ireland. NIR is a subsidiary of Translink, whose parent company is the Northern Ireland Transport Holding Company (NITHCo), and is one of five publicly owned train operators in the United Kingdom, the others being Network Rail, Direct Rail Services, Northern Trains and LNER. It has a common Board of Management with the other two companies in the group, Ulsterbus and Metro (formerly Citybus). The rail network in Northern Ireland is not part of the National Rail network of Great Britain, nor does it use Standard Gauge, instead using Irish Gauge in common with the rest of Ireland. Also, NIR is the only commercial non-heritage passenger operator in the United Kingdom to operate a vertical integration model, with responsibility of all aspects of the network including running trains, maintaining rolling stock and infrastructure, and pricing. However, since the Single European Railway Directive 2012, the company has allowed open access operations by other rail operators. In 2017, NI Railways carried 15 million passengers.

NIR jointly runs the Enterprise train service between Belfast and Dublin with Iarnród Éireann. There is no link to the rail system in Great Britain; proposals have been made, but allowances would have to be made for the different rail gauge (standard gauge) in use in Britain and Ireland (Irish gauge).
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Belfast 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 Kingdom and the second-largest on the island of Ireland. It had a population of 333,871 as of 2015. Belfast suffered greatly in the Troubles: in the 1970s and 1980s it was one of the world's most dangerous cities, with a homicide rate around 31 per 100,000.

Belfast is still a port with commercial and industrial docks, including the Harland and Wolff shipyard, dominating the Belfast Lough shoreline. It is served by two airports: George Best Belfast City Airport and Belfast International Airport 15 miles (24 km) west of the city.
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