Saturday 4th September 2010 ~ X1 Mystery Tour

This weekend sees the culmination of roadworks on the Ouse bridge at South Lynn with heavy engineering work and a forecast of major delays. As it turns out, these have not materialised and in fact, the X1 ran well for most of the day.
 Suzanne had one of those funny encounters with the public today. An elderly couple came in the shop to have their specs adjusted. The lady told Suzanne how they had come to us even though they now live in Hunstanton ! Apparently they had caught the bus to Lynn and then the X1 forward to Wisbech. They were rather surprised to find that the X1 route had changed and they had the pleasure of travelling to Clenchwarton and Terrington St. Clement and then via Hay Green to regain the normal route at Terrington St. John. Intrigued by this unorthodox route, she enquired of the driver as to why he had taken the bus this way. He replied that he had forgotten the route !
Now this seemed extremely odd to me, but then it dawned on me that because of the roadworks, the slip road from the Saddlebow roundabout down onto the A47 Lynn bypass is closed and most X1s are leaving the South Gates roundabout via South Lynn, over the speed humps to cross the river over what used to be called the Cut Bridge. This then brings you to a T junction where to regain the A47 at Freebridge roundabout you turn left. Our driver turned right, hence the mix up. As to which service was involved, I didn't get to find that out, but it was before 13.30.
 Buses to Peterborough seem to have at last settled on taking the correct (Nene Quay) route out of Wisbech and what I saw this morning was impressive : Y6 08.48 to Peterborough 37577 right time, Y7 37573 right time, L8 37563 one minute late, L9 37158 (for the second Saturday in a row) one late and Y10 37160 right time. L11 didn't appear and as it turned out had 37157 - back in service at last - removed at Lynn to have wheelnuts checked and 37567 replaced it. Whether this left Wisbech via the A1101 or simply didn't run is not known. L12 which on Saturdays is the single return trip was 34108 eleven late and then came 37565 on Y13 which had somehow lost 15 minutes - a good contender for the service which got lost me thinks. K14 was only 7 late with 37574 and K15 which is a Lynn driver was 37575 19 late. Afternoon services were pretty much to time.
37568 was used on K3 today, but there was a logical reason behind this, as 37567/8/71 were all preassigned for remedial work on their 'traffic light' Drive Green systems at Lynn tonight. This is the electronic system which 'First' use to determine whether buses are being driven correctly or not. 567 was being checked as it has had a high number of 'incidents' whereas it is thought that 568s equipment had stopped functioning altogether.