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27/06/2009

Friday 26th June 2009 ~ It Never Rains But It Pours.....

Scania 65525 arrives at Wisbech after a storm this evening on K5 18.40 from Peterborough

Today got off to a good start for a Friday. Rob Brooks was about, having finished an all-line railrover and reported K3 37573 0805 Peterborough - Lowestoft on time. 20353 K4 0835 Peterborough - Lowestoft 5 late, 37575 passed Guyhirn 0907 heading into Peterborough on Y6 and finally 37568 on L8 0948 Wisbech - Peterborough left 0951. It was a quieter day for B10Ms with only three seen, these being 20107 on K2, 20105 on Y13 and 20106 on K18.

Bruce bumped into Richard at Rowan Road this morning where 20123 was receiving attention to an injector pipe leak. It is due to return to Norwich as soon as the situation with the B9s improves, however, this could be a while yet. 37578 is still being raided for seatbelts to keep other B9s in service and there are no signs of the ordered replacements turning up. The saga of 37565's unreliability was disclosed today, Bruce says it is suffering from an ABS fault and Kieron who was back at work today reports it being used on one of the Hunstanton schools contracts this afternoon because of a shortage of B10Ms !!! Richard says 20109 is on restricted working at the moment pending repairs and only 20118 & 20131 were available this afternoon. Work on 20121 has not commenced yet because of the maintenance backlog at Lynn.

By lunchtime, everything was still running smoothly but being a Friday one knew it was only a matter of time before things went downhill. Andy James and myself managed to piece things together and this is what ensued... An A47 accident at Hockering began the disruption causing delays and then 37573 had to be taken out of service at Lynn after a passenger was ill on the bus. First sign of anything amiss through Wisbech was when K19 15.18 to Peterborough failed to appear having terminated at King's Lynn with 37566. K1 then ran as normal with 37569, but K2 with 20107 was delayed and this turn appeared with 37566. K3 had 37573 as far as Lynn where it was taken out of traffic for cleaning and 20107 worked forward. K4 managed to avoid any substantial delay with 20353 throughout, but K5 was very late into King's Lynn with 37579 so Scania 65525 was pressed into frontline activity on the 17.15 to Peterborough. Peter reported seeing it at its destination and I passed it en route to the Rose Tavern beer festival returning east. K19 which was cancelled over the western section this afternoon continued from Lynn at 17.32 with a cleaned up 37573. L12 which had been 37570 this morning was swapped at Lowestoft for 20352 and this was viewed through a pint glass heading out of Wisbech westbound at 21.22.

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