The provision of a new roundabout on the A47 at Honingham combined with wintry condieions for a time this morning was always going to make today's timetable a bit dodgy.
Bruce was on the ball though and noted 37579 passing his house at Walpole Highway 4 minutes early, no less, on the return of the first trip to Peterborough. Later 37579 came back an hour later than scheduled. Typically unimpressive it was 18 late going west and 19 late at Wisbech on the return 18.18 P'bo - Lowestoft. Before lunch delays of up to 45 minutes were noted, but in the afternoon these had reduced to about 20 mins on average. The 15.59 Lynn - P'bo did not appear so it may have been a cancellation. Later this evening, 37569 on the 18.59 Lynn - P'bo was halted at Wisbech, although only about 20 late and it then waited until 21.09 when it went back to Lowestoft. Quite why it failed to go through to its destination is unclear. 37570 on the next westbound service was noted refuelling at Vancouver Avenue, complete with passenger compliment at 20.23, shortly before it continued westbound approx 25 late.
After yesterday's late running 37563 made it back to Lynn on one of the after midnight arrivals and was at Rowan Road today. 37565 was spare at Lynn garage today while 37575 was over the pits alongside 20508/9. It would seem that today's service was entirely Gemini worked. There were six B10Ms at Rowan Road tonight, so prospects for appearances tomorrow would seem good. 20109 had 'X1 Lowestoft' on the front, so must have been taken off at some stage and 20118 off Y9 last night was also present.
Jim wrote today and on the subject of the B9s speed handicap wrote : "With reference to the new X1 Decker's always being late, I understand they were set at 50mph and now to 56mph, but my gut feeling still is being coach seated and seat belted they are the same as a double deck coach and can be set to 100kph which is 62mph. Now the B10m's are 9.6 litre and 12067kgs with a height of 3.2mtrs and they I understand can keep to time, while the B9's are 9.4 litres and are 12710kgs, OK so they are 700k's heavier, but it's that ole height thing against the wind that probably hampers these Gemies and at 56mph they are going to be late. I did work for a company that did tacho & speed limiters on all new /old vehicles and the 56mph is usually for lorries,even a little Enviro200 is set at 62mph so it may be worth Fec checking this out again, as the white elephants don't want to end up as a real white elephant as they say..
I would love to confirm this speed thing with my ole work mates,but,sadly the company were taken over,and then went out of business, due to the credit crunch last month. ". Interesting stuff Jim amd thanks for getting in touch. Seems odd that if they can be set to a 62mph max they haven't acted swiftly, but then may be we shouldn't be surprised. Imagine how things would be now if the 50mph setting was still in situ ! To begin with, I rather resented the gleaming Geminis, even though they were decked out with hard bus type seats, but now I'm beginning to feel a bit sorry for them as they are clearly NOT designed with long distance work in mind.
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