Ask anyone who was a teenage railway enthusiast in the 1980s and they
will regale you with tales of 'bunking' engine sheds or locomotive
works. While many depot foremen would happily allow youngsters to wander
their shed buildings and yards to admire the locomotives stabled there,
others would take great pleasure in chasing us away. This meant that
some depots could only be accessed by clambering through holes in fences
or thick clumps of brambles, while constantly keeping a lookout for shed
staff. We travelled the country visiting sheds from Inverness to
Plymouth and were always ultra-cautious, keeping off running lines; all
we were interested in was loco numbers and taking photographs.
Occasional shed open days meant interesting motive power from other
regions, and the most memorable events were probably when the larger BR
Engineering works such as Swindon or Doncaster threw open their doors.
This book shows all aspects of such visits from our youth.