Thursday 5th February 2009 ~ A Route of Two Halves

Three hours after the snow stopped and normal service resumes at Walpole Highway. At 12.52, 37565 approaches on L12 as 37563 heads for Wisbech on K16. Apologies for the poor photo, very much a point and shoot job !

A rather empty 37570 seen from my work in Wisbech at 09.47 this morning en route to Peterborough.

Whereas the east of the region bore the brunt of the snow on Monday, today it was the turn of the west. Sam sent an email mid morning asking what all the fuss was about as he only had rain in Beccles. Here around Lynn and Wisbech it was a totally different story. It began to snow at 4am and continued until 10.00. This made everything bar the main A47 passable only with care. It was decided to make the western section of the X1 a reduced frequency of hourly.

Lynn garage supplied the normal full compliment of buses, but obviously some did not do their booked turns to Peterborough. The six westbound departures between 05.24 and 07.59 were allocated as follows : K5 05.24 : 37574 ; K7 05.54 : 37575; K1 06.29 : 37578; K2 06.59 : 37579; K4 07.29 : 20352 and K6 07.59 : 37570. In addition K3 which goes empty from Lynn garage to Wisbech to form the 06.53 to Lowestoft had 20353 allocated. How many of these services ran is debatable, but from information gathered by Bruce, Jamie Robinson and myself we can deduce the following. First westbound service on the booked route through Walpole Highway passed Bruce at 09.00 with a B9 thought to be 37573 tackling the A47 flyover at walking speed as Y8. Some earlier services had run but presumably took the A47 bypass to reach Wisbech. One of these was 37574 which was seen entering Walton Highway eastbound at 09.07, so in the path of a late running K1. Had it really set out at 05.24 on K5 as booked, then in reality it was by this time running 85 minutes late ! The next westbound service seen was through Wisbech at 09.47 and was 37570 (this should have been K6 07.59 ex Lynn due off Wisbech at 08.31 !). Jamie later saw it at Guyhirn at 11.21 having lost a further 15 minutes and heading back east in the correct timings for J10. With me so far ?? Jamie himself left Wisbech for Peterborough on 37565 at around 11.10 (L12). At 12.05 37564 was seen arriving at Wisbech on Y14, only about 8 late.

This afternoon there was a period of rain and consequently most snow on the road disappeared. After this an hourly service resumed and subsequent services were seen as follows : K15 37571 (4 late), K16 37563 (6 late) and K17 37577 (3 late). K18 14.01 Wisbech - P'boro then failed to appear, or was very late. The next service K3 was 20353 as expected and was 2 late. K5 departed Wisbech westbound slightly early at 15.00 with 37568 , but then K7 15.31 was not seen. K1 16.01 had 37567 one minute early and 37574 which had been seen earlier was K2 16.31 again on time. Rather inconveniently K4 17.01 Wisbech to Peterborough didn't run for some reason tonight.

Having to do my supermarket shop tonight, I popped over to Lynn to check things out. There had been swaps at Lowestoft too, as K16 started with 20103 and K17 with 20351, these were not the buses on these turns at lunchtime, see above. 37568 had been K18 and this ended up on K5. Meanwhile 20109 went out on K19, the X2 turn, but 20106 came back on it tonight. The spare turn (K20) was 37576 today. Y8 tonight came in with 37578 and Y21 with 37569 which had been seen by Terence at teatime. At Rowan Road tonight were 20118, 20351 (taken off K17 at some point with an electrical fault), 20105 (off MOT) and 20131 (off service 40). 20505 also remains at the compound. Vancouver Avenue had 37575 on pit 1 for an exam with 37565/70/72/73. More snow forecast for the morning, so we will see what ensues.