Monday 17th November 2008 ~ A New Dawn

20119 (N619APU) defies the odds and passes Walton Highway on K18 10.25 Lowestoft - Peterborough today

Well today is the last day of the X1 charts I have kept for over 4 years. All things have to end somewhere and although I intend to keep the blog for observations, my nightly visits to King's Lynn will henceforth become weekly. I've made a lot of friends there, so will keep in touch with them.

So to today then and it all seems rather odd now without the B12s and a brand new fleet supplemented by the dear old B10s. The B9 count reached a new high today with 16/17 noted in service, leaving just 37566 absent. The roadworks at Wisbech once again inflicted major delays on services and tonight 37567 on K1 16.48 Peterborough - Lowestoft was seen entering Wisbech on the A1101 Churchill Road 26 mins late in order to avoid the queues on Cromwell Road. Earlier in the day the average lateness was 20 minutes and 37577 was noted in service on L13 after a few days absence. Sam later saw this in Norwich bus station out of service and it appears to have changed here for 37578 which turned up this evening late on L13 19.59 Lynn - P'bo , being seen 16 late entering Lynn and then 24 late past Bruce at Walpole Highway. The X2 turn (K19) had 20126 to begin the day, but this replaced 20107 on K5 at Lowestoft and K19 continued with a Volvo Royale Olympian. Tonight though K19 was 37577 (see above). Sam and Michael both saw 20121 enjoying an outing on the X2 today. Meanwhile resuscitated 20119 was out on K18 and from the Lowestoft end 20117 came out on K16 in place of 37565. 20103 was due to do Y21 tonight, while KL schools turns were 20131/104/105.

20114 was being repaired in VA tonight , while 20118 and 20351/3 were at Rowan Road.

Plenty of emails from you all today, Sam says "Well I did make a joke to someone about all 17 lining up together to get into a bus station... well today I had 5! At around 15.30 in Norwich bus station 37577/8 appeared to be going east, though 37577 was dead, while another unidentified, was departing for Lowestoft. Peterborough bound were 37572 and 37565, whilst a ghostly apparition again unidentified was K19" (I think this was 37577 Sam). Nevertheless as Sam says this was a veritable 'Herd of White Elephants' !

John says "Today I arrived at Lynn Bus Station at 09.35. The 0929 to Pbo (J10) , 37564, was on the stand with through pax locked in and no driver. 20 or so prospective pax were waiting to board. I joined them and like them wished the "realtime" (?) displays would give info re delays. At 09.38 a couple of drivers turned up and we boarded, leaving at 09.45. There was talk on the bus that driver had been late in, and our delay was him finishing his break. I rode to Wisbech and seats were OK by me. Returned on 09.48 ex Pbo (37573) which was a bit over 20 late. Full load (no-one pays). 573 then left Lynn at 11.40, so 28 late.
Found it near impossible to identify buses encountered en-route - worse than on a coach !" Please keep your observations/experiences flowing in, we all enjoy reading about them. B10 sightings from now on will probably form the backbone of this blog, though surely their days are numbered ?