The first B12 Paragons to move to pastures new would seem to be 20500/07/08/09 as all were marked 'not to be used ' this evening and were residing at Rowan Road. 20500 finished X1 work at Lynn last night as the 23.37 arrival from Peterborough, 20507 returned from Norwich today (34903 believed to have gone the other way), 20508 did K4 07.29 Lynn - Peterborough and 08.48 Peterborough - Lowestoft as far as Lynn today where John W viewed it in the bus station centre, to use John's own words 'looking forlorn'. 37567 replaced it. 20509 last worked on Monday morning. If as looks likely these are the final workings of the four at FEC, they will owe 'First' very little.
20141/142 are due to be used for rail replacement work this weekend (Chelmsford ?).
Meanwhile the three expected Geminis + repaired 37571's move back to Lynn were postponed for a day. The disruption to booked turns is partly because some drivers don't have digital tacho cards yet and this can cause unscheduled swaps. B7 20353 was out of service today with an electrical fault, while 20141 was being repaired at Vancouver Avenue.
Once again the X1 service was in disarray at lunchtime. Successive westbound departures from Wisbech went thus : L13 11.29 20111 right time, Y14 12.01 20502 -6, K15 12.31 20504 -15, K16 13.01 20352 -30 ! The 'late' lady driver was in charge of 20352 and made efforts to regain some time, being 21 late past Bruce on its return.
The undoubted 'highlight' of the day, if indeed it can be called that was the use of Scania 65527 on the 12.59 Lynn - Peterborough (K17). Quite incredible with the amount of coaches at Lynn, but with 20500/7/8/9 sidelined and 20107/31/42 earmarked for later schools turns, resources were stretched. Whether 20352 on K17 was running very late or had a fault is unknown, but it appears to have been Ok to relieve 65527 at 15.42. At the other end of the scale, today seemed to pass without a Gemini debacle. K6 departing 13 late from Lynn to the coast with 37565 as witnessed by John seemed about the worst timekeeper.
B12s in service today were 20501 (on K19 X2 turn - how the mighty are fallen !), 20502/3/4/6 and B10s 20103/104/105/107 (did 16.59 Lynn - P'bo etc after schools), 109/111/126. The seven serviceable Geminis were again all in traffic.
This is the unofficial blog for the Peterborough - Norwich XL bus service operated by First Group. Originally reporting the introduction of the 'Gemini' double deckers and the phasing out of coaches, the blog is now incredibly in its twelfth year and in 2021 the new fleet of state of the art double deckers enter their second year in traffic. To contact me with your observations/experiences on the XL, email gerardtcc@gmail.com .
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