Thursday 11th June 2009 ~ The Rarest Of Them All ?

In far from ideal photographic conditions, 20115's first working through Wisbech for over 18 months had to be captured for posterity ! It is seen passing the Octavia Hill Museum on its way to Peterborough at 11.25 today looking rather battered.

37572 heads east down the Wisbech bypass this afternoon while working K19 for the second successive day.

The lady driver of 20115 was probably oblivious to the rarity of its working today. It is seen here after arrival at King's Lynn this evening.

After a fairly quiet period of late, today was full of incident. Last night you may recall that I mentioned the rare event of 20106 working on the X1 over the last couple of days. It was indeed due to a quick visit to Volvo by 37570 for further attention to its abs sensors. Today 37570 was back on the road, but so was 20106 which did K4 throughout sending it to Lowestoft overnight. The 'Excel' lettering which was removed from 106 is now clearly visible under the paintwork. Grahame reports that 20115 made a foray out to Yarmouth yesterday to assist in a vehicle shortage, but Ryan enlarges on this and says that 115 was then collected by a Lowestoft driver who had travelled over on 20352 and both 115 and 352 then went back to Lowestoft, He adds that 20127 has had an MOT and 20107 is being worked on currently. 20104 is being used while 20126 remains on the X1.

37569 did not appear today and Lowestoft appear to be suffering from a staff shortage as 37563 was in King's Lynn tonight for servicing and 37564 was also expected for same, however, this duly went through to Lowestoft on Y6 tonight. The situation with 37569 being stopped resulted in the almost inredibly rare sight of 20115 working an X1 turn. It appeared on L11 and Bruce kindly alerted me in order that I could nip out for a photograph on what was its first visit to Peterborough since 25th November 2007 ! It completed the turn and during the day possibly traversed new territory as once again the X1 service was using the A1101 to reach Wisbech. I passed it on the Churchill Road at about 13.00 heading for Lowestoft. The B198 Lynn Road is closed for subsidence work and is not likely to reopen until the end of June.

It was a really good day for B10M fans as not only were 20106 and 20115 out (and imagine the likelihood of that a few weeks ago), but 20126 also worked on K2 and there were two swaps at Lynn. 20109 did a shift to Peterborough and back on L8 after 37575 expired in Norwich, it is not known if a Norwich car did the interim bit. 109 was late departing from Lynn and was still 23 late passing Bruce at Walpole Highway on the return. In order to complete booked maintenance, 20352 was taken off L10 at Lynn with 20105 working forward at 10.15 and then sticking for the rest of the day. B7 20351 was sent out on K3, but this too was removed this afternoon for a service and 20353 worked forward to Peterboro' at 16.15, itself having been serviced. 37573 was put on K5, but a swap was somehow arranged with the resuscitated 37575 and this ended up on K5 with 37573 doing L8 after the fling with 20109. So all in all a complicated but interesting scenario. Any observations over the next few days are welcome, please email the usual address and I will formulate a summary on my return.