Found this helpful for me as a Yank trying to understand what y'all are gabbin' about from the UK. https://train.spottingworld.com/List_of_UK_railfan_jargon Feel free to add anything else you've come across. I tried to post the whole list here without the link, but it's too long for the Forum to accept.
Bunking is known as traveling on a train without a ticket. Or fare evasion I've never heard it used as a term for entering a depot without permission before. Might be some truth to it though.
Rancid overnight! Did a few of those in my time, even worse when the Mark 2’s started appearing as the seated stock on overnight trains as any form of Kip under those unrelenting fluorescent lights was nigh on impossible. Which, when the point of the trip was to cover a scenic route with rateable traction such as the West Highland or Far North, meant you missed a large chunk of it when involuntary torpor kicked in and you kept nodding off.
If you wanted a properly rancid overnight look no further than the Kent overnights. Often there would be a steam heat only GUV behind the crompton which is a problem when it’s minus five outside and all cromptons were ETH only. There were iceicles forming in the windows.
I've bunked a few depots in my time mostly at open days, would look for the sealed off interesting places and have a little wander to see if I could find some hidden locos not part of the displays, risk was always high but the the rewards could be worth more gold bullion in fort Knocks as a train spotter back in the day.........
Rumour is Fort Knox has been emptied for years at this point, or if not empty very much reduced in importance as the heart of uncle Sam's wealth resources........
"One hundred and forty billion dollars! Ten times what's in Kentucky! Fort Knox? Ha! It's for tourists!"
My dad told me sneaking into a depot (bunking) when he was a youngster wasn't all that different from sneaking into a public car park!
The steam and very early diesel age was before my time, born 12 years exactly to the day Steam died on British railways, but have read enough books and accounts to know bunking depots was rampant back in the good ol' days......
That's interesting. Yeah the good old days before health and safety. Even in my childhood if you was lucky enough for a freight train to be held at a signal on the platform, some drivers would let you hop onboard and get a ride to the next station. My dad is 86. He's local line was the cuckoo line. Also he remembers the hawkhurst branch as a farm worker and many more. He was telling me they would wonder into various depots and often get thrown out when caught but sometimes being allowed to lend a helping hand. How times change.
