Wednesday 1st July 2009 ~ The Royal Norfolk Slow

Handsome 20106 is seen between the Highways - Walton and Walpole - this morning on K3 (of course). The Royal Norfolk Show played havoc with today's schedules however and 106 was swapped at Lowestoft.

20131 has just been rejected in favour of 37570, but there are no such problems for 34921 (right and out of picture) which is off to Sunny Hunny.

Summer of Love 1. 37566 with original Easyjet ad for flights to Majorca leaves Lynn on K14. It had arrived 30 late on Y13.

Summer of Love 2. 37568 with the fishy Easyjet ad for Malaga leaves King's Lynn at 12.32 for Lowestoft on Y9.

Summer of Love 3. Here's 37564 arriving at Lynn 62 late today on K14 sporting the most common version of the Easyjet ad around at the moment, advertising flights from Luton to Athens.

I'm on holiday from work this week and decided to devote some of today to monitoring the X1. My day began quite successfully as I guessed that K3 would be 20106 and was able as you can see above, to get a picture of it at work, having felt that it has been rather neglected pictorially for a while. Next I discovered from Bruce that K5 was 37576 and was rather pleased as I'd predicted this yesterday (my predictions rarely succeed !). Thanks to Rob Brooks also for some early reports today.

I set out for King's Lynn at around 10.30 and saw 20104 at Tilney All Saints on time working L10. After a fleeting visit to Rowan Road where the only relevant occupants were 20121, 37578 awaiting repairs plus 20118/131 and 34933 off schools turns, I headed for town and then passed L11 with 20109. I knew then that all was not plain sailing as 20109 is restricted at the moment due to a faulty oil seal and must have come on at Lynn, so I headed for the bus station to see what was going on. At around 11.05 20131 turned up from Rowan Road with 'X1 Peterborough' on the blinds. It parked in the middle and then at 11.13 37570 arrived on what at first appeared to be L12, but it soon became apparent that this was L11 running 36 late. There was then some animated conversation between the incoming driver and a fitter and 20131 drew up alongside. After further deliberation, it was decided that 20131 was not needed and that 570 was able to proceed. 20131 then departed but not before Blondie (for twas she who was the forward driver), chased after 131 on foot as she'd left her mobile phone on it. With this recovered she then rejoined 570, passengers boarded and it then set sail at 11.21. It transpired that 131 has a faulty ecu and 570 is still having problems with its ABS, so it was a toss up which one would go, but Karen preferring B9s decided on 570. After this a pattern emerged where the incoming vehicle from Lowestoft would depart having dropped a turn, for example 20103 arrived at 11.37, 30 late on L12 and then worked forward as Y13. Next came 37566, 31 late on Y13 and then departing 15 late as K14. After the arrival of 566 at 12.09, there was then a lull on westbound arrivals of exactly an hour when at 13.09 20105 came in with 37564 immediately behind and after a further 2 minutes 37574 also arrived from the east. These were K16 on time, K14 62 late and K15 30 late ! Some clever arranging took place and then 37564 went on to the Peterborough stand departing at around 13.20 now as K16, 37574 went empty to Wisbech to resume K15 and 20105 relieved 20109 on L11 leaving eastbound 16 late. All this meant that there was a gap in Peterborough departures between 566 at 12.29 and 564 at 13.20.

With the arrival of 37579 on K17 things seemed to settle down, however, there may have been further changes on Lowestoft arrivals as later K18 which had started out with 37563 had 20353 (Bruce saw it and even Richard was unaware thinking it was still blown up at Lowestoft !) and 20106 on K3 ended up (we think) on K4. This meant 20352 returned on K3 (possibly having turned round at Yarmouth as it was originally on K4). The reason for the almighty delays was queueing traffic to the Royal Norfolk showground with four mile tailbacks at one stage. This is a two day event, so may be we can expect the same tomorrow. 20353 had been at Lowestoft with a suspension problem and after this was cured it's indicators stopped working, however, it was fixed for K18 this afternoon. The days events weren't finished though as tonight 37568 which had arrived at Vancouver Avenue off Y9 at about 19.30 was hastily refuelled and sent out to Dereham to relieve a fellow B9 which had a smashed windscreen.

Michael Bryant and Sam both witnessed 20107 on the X2 today and Trident 32801 appeared on the turn described yesterday. Michael also saw 37565 today. It was heading for Norwich down the Loddon bypass at around 9am and may possibly have been on a special in connection with the Royal Norfolk show. It had 'First' on the destination display. Another interesting vehicle seen by Michael was 20127 which was seen heading out of Norwich on the Lowestoft route at 07.25, but not it would seem on an X2. We've already mentioned the fact that 20131 almost worked to Peterborough this morning, but it did later see some action when it worked the 12.35 service 40 from Lynn to Hunstanton before doing schools contract no. 2 at teatime. What will tomorrow bring ??