Monday 1st November 2010 ~ Hold The Front Page - It's 20115

Back on October 9th, we reported the rare appearance of B10M 20115 on the main X1 service. On that occasion though, traffic problems saw it only reach King's Lynn before returning home. Today however, it travelled the whole route and did Y13 in its entirety, this forming the last bus from Peterborough back to Lynn at 23.10 having already worked the 13.05 Peterborough - Lowestoft earlier in the day. It was also the most delayed X1 seen today and was 13 late at Walpole Highway heading to Peterborough at 12.16. That being the case, I settled for getting a picture of it leaving Wisbech on the 13.56 to Lowestoft - that singularly failed though when I expected it to be still running late and it passed me dead on time. Bruce though was successful and here is his picture.



Steven said the driver of 115 this evening seemed to be struggling to get it into gear, but it survived the day. The reason for 115s appearance was the non-availability of 37156 at Yarmouth.  20121 was on time am & pm with K3, but the rest of the service was low floor Geminis. Timekeeping was excellent today.

Syd says "We thought you may like to know of the unusual day 20107 has had. It started with the 881 school service relief Carlton Colville to Flegg High School, Light to Lowestoft, then the afternoon trip to Bernard Mathews and back from Lowestoft with James driving. It then did 1803 X2 Lowestoft - Beccles, back light, before working 2315 99 to Southwold and light to Bernies to bring the same people back home it originally took out, at 0040 on the 2nd Nov".

Below is one of the finest bus night pictures I think I've ever seen, it was taken at 2045 at Gordon Road by James. 37571 is about to depart on X1, 37576 was having it's hours rest, 42445 was on the 2115 ser 99 to Southwold and 20107 was lurking about to take the exhausted James home in just over two hours time.



I was so impressed, I made this picture my desktop background. Copyright James Race

 Des reports his duty today : "Y7 37570 - 15:42 Great Yarmouth - King's Lynn,  6 late departure (15:48), 3 late @ Norwich (16:28), 8 late @ Dereham (17:13), 8 late @ Swaffham (17:45), 8 late into King's Lynn (18:15). After my break I drove 37569 - K4 19:35 Lynn to Lowestoft,  then light to Yarmouth - on time throughout (Haven bridge  is closed westbound, diversion via A47 & A12). Note:- 'First' were very lucky in Norwich this afternoon - At 16:27 the short run Norwich to Gorleston at 16:40 pulled onto a very full bay 4, just behind it was 20115. If 20115 were to have been on time, then it would have never have cleared the queue. I also passed 20115 westbound in Dereham @ 20:40. Tesco petrol watch - a 2p increase in Lowestoft  - 116.9 low - 118.9 lynn.

This is the last full week of Blackpool Illuminations - Sitting in the cab of an X1 can be very illuminating! - Pictured right are just some of the instruments alight. When driving in the dark there is also a ghostly image of yourself reflected in the windscreen!".
Thanks for that Des, I think all our readers will join me in saying that the X1 drivers are very special with all they have to put up with - and I don't mean me and Bruce taking their photos in action. The language barrier with some of the punters must be quite daunting alone, let alone keeping the more unruly passengers in line. Give yourselves a pat on the back !