Well a truly bizarre day today with a bit of everything thrown in for good measure. Gemini 37572 was sent for accident damage repairs and in exchange Volvo 'demonstrator' or loan vehicle, whichever you'd like to call it - 37562 reg FJ08EYN, was provided from Volvo to cover. 37564 failed to appear and it looks as though its breakdown on Friday may be more serious than at first thought.
The day began normally enough with K1 05.40 King's Lynn to Peterborough being allocated 37568, this worked to Peterborough and back to Lynn but was then removed because of a broken driving seat. Old stalwart 20105 was brought out of the Rowan Road retirement home for good buses and worked forward to Lowestoft at 08.32. Later this afternoon, 20105 was taken off and 37562 running bereft of fleet numbers and bearing a confusing 'First Manchester' in the destination box was used to work the 15.15 King's Lynn - Peterborough & 16.35 Peterborough - Great Yarmouth. What the punters thought when this approached can only be imagined. Bruce saw it virtually on the tail of 37574 on K19 leaving Walpole Highway at 17.40 and phoned me as he thought he was having hallucinations. Andy confirmed it departing from Lynn at 18.02, still with the misleading destination. So remember folks it is 37562, not that you will see a fleet number on it apparently ! 37568 was taken out of service and is now awaiting parts from Wrights.
It was a poor day for timekeeping and when Y6 05.50 from Yarmouth passed Walpole Highway one minute before time with 37579, I should have known things would only get worse. Y7 was 11 late going west but lost a lot of time and was seen by Bruce on the A47 bypass heading back east around 34 minutes late. L8 in contrast was only 3 late at this point and it was possible to see two eastbound services at once, one on the old road through the villages (37563 on L8) and 37567 flailing down the bypass. It clearly didn't make up sufficient time despite this effort and the second part of Y7, the 14.55 Lowestoft to Lynn was entrusted to 'The Beast'.
Early evening services were heavily delayed between Wisbech and Peterborough and 37158 on K3 was 37 minutes late arriving at King's Lynn at 19.35. The following service, K4 had 34108 and was 13 minutes late arriving and K5 with 37159 was about ten late terminating.
Instead of providing a coach, Yarmouth turned out 60863 for Y13 this morning, so presumably 20126 & 20127 were unavailable.
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 .
No comments:
Post a Comment