Tuesday 18th November 2008 ~ His Own Personal Coach !

Sightings between us mustered only one B10 coach today, that being 20117 on L13 10.59 King's Lynn - Peterborough which was 8 late going west and on its return was Jamie R's own personal coach as he was the only passenger when it arrived at Wisbech. Despite the ongoing roadworks it was only 10 late as was 20351 which it met at Walpole on K17.
An accident near Acle closed the A47 for a while at lunchtime and K5 14.29 King's Lynn - Peterborough passed Bruce with Scania 65527, either because of the delay or maybe if it was a B10 this was required for schools. B7 20352 was seen at Wisbech 23 late on the 15.18 ex Peterborough this afternoon.
B9s seen today were 37578 12 late on K1 07.48 ex Pbo, 37576 10 late on J10 10.48 ex Pbo, 37575 only 3 late on K15 21.59 Lynn - P'bo, 37573 running 24 late on L13 19.59 Lynn - Pbo, but only 5 late returning, 37567 5 late on Y14 20.59 Lynn - Pbo, 37563 15 late on Y9 19.18 ex Pbo and finally 37572 which John saw arriving at Lynn this morning on Y8 at 08.18, as he says 6 early, but normal time when a coach !
John now reminds us of how things were just 11 years ago hereabouts :

November yesteryear………..Nov 1997
We might think this Peterboro-Lowestoft service has run forever -but a look back 11 years to November 1997 finds the then X94 service running Norwich - Kings Lynn -Peterborough only. At that time the Kings Lynn depot provided all the buses and all crews for the service.
Summer 1997 had seen a 5th B10 coach arrive to expand the X94, then virtually an hourly service in the daytime period. In November, Eastern Counties (not yet FEC !) were named as runners-up in the Bus Industry awards for marketing initiative for the X94 service. On 29th October, a 6th coach arrived in the shape of N619 APU. The former Thamesway Citysaver, having plodded along the Southend to London route since new, became ECOC fleet number 40, and was needed to meet further X94 timetable improvements which filled some last gaps to create the hourly service (Mons-Sats).
All did not run smoothly in the first week of the improved service, for on 6th November, a green Norwich Park and Ride liveried Leyland National Greenway arrived in Lynn as a substitute for a failed B10. The Greenway ( 667 - YFY 5M), was taken off service at Lynn, and replaced by Leyland Tiger 27 (F614 XWY). At that time the former East Anglian Hotel on Blackfriars Road/Portland Street was surrounded by scaffolding, and if cars were parked towards the end of Portland Street, that could make for a difficult turn for big buses. 27 managed to impale on the scaffolding, and could not be removed for several hours until the authorities had assessed the safety of the scaffolding. This caused major congestion in the Lynn one-way system, it also took out of service the first-line X94 replacement coach at a time when at least 2 of the 6 B10s were out of action. This caused the debut on X94 of Tiger 25 (CSV 524) from the Rosemary Coaches schools unit, while VR 229 (DEX 229T) was seen plodding through to Norwich.
Things can only get better ????