"OK lads. Take care near the open pits and let me know when you're leaving." With those cheerful words, the depot foreman would wave us into the inner sanctum and another shed-full of engine numbers would find their way into our notebooks. Astonishing though it might seem today, that was the sort of response my friends and I received at many places in the 'sixties and early 'seventies as we toured the nation's main line depots in a battered old minibus... yet only rarely were we in possession of official permits. Just occasionally a foreman would call after us: "If anyone says anything, I've not seen you!", but most of them were totally relaxed about it.
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