Friday 13th August 2010 ~ Oh No ! It's Friday 13th

It's amazing how things on the X1 can go from being quite comfortable to chaos in a very short time, but today was a good example.
From my vantage point on Nene Quay in Wisbech, L11 with 37576 passed by bang on time to Peterborough at 11.20 and L12 came next with 37569 just 4 late. Meanwhile, at Lowestoft Tony was a passenger on K1 which was 37570 and this arrived late - possibly due to an Acle Straight A47 accident, just as the second part of K1 departed with 37566 which had been inserted as spare bus. This then led to the laying over arrangement being applied, so at Lowestoft K2 with 37563 was changed at 12.25 for 37570 off K1, then K3 with 20514 was given 37563 for the 12.55 and so on until 37567 arrived at 14.10 on Y6. Things had then eased and Y7 with 37572 continued on its turn and 37567 retired from the X1 for the day.

Back at King's Lynn mid afternoon was the time when things went badly wrong. L12 due to depart for Lowestoft left almost on time at 14.05 with 37569, but then Y13 failed to appear from Peterborough. With passenger numbers swelling and 37566 having arrived on K1 (see above) to do the 15.15 to Peterborough, through passengers were ejected and 566 then formed Y13 14.32 back to Lowestoft, but departed 56 late at 15.28 !! This then left a hole in the Peterborough service and eventually 37160 arrived from Peterborough on Y13 incredibly late and this then became K1, departing Lynn at about 15.45 (30 late). It was seen leaving Wisbech 27 late in a thunderstorm. What a business !!

The upshot of all this was that 20514 had suddenly found itself on a diagram which ends at Yarmouth, so it was taken off K4 at Lynn at 19.27 and 37563 off K3 was pinched to do K4 at 19.35 to Lowestoft. This created a situation where 563 had started the day on K2, dropped down to K3 and ended up on K4 which is something I can't recall happening before.
Other evening changes involved Y9 with 37568 which then took L10 19.50 Lynn - Peterborough instead of 37564. Y13 returned with 37156 instead of 37566 which surely must have been a bit disorientated. 156 had done K14 earlier and with the current schedule there is a 28 minute layover between K14s arrival at Lowestoft at 18.20 and the departure back to Peterborough of Y13 at 18.48. It was late arriving at Lynn though at 21.49 which meant the last Peterborough was late.
Syd reports that the bad weather meant that yesterday's reliefs for the Lowestoft Airshow were not repeated.
Whilst all this was going on, 37573 which worked Y6 on Thursday was sent to Volvo for engine repairs.