Tuesday 26th October 2010 ~ Digging Up The Road AGAIN

There really seems to be no reason why Nene Quay continues to be closed now - I suspect it is simply because the advertised date for it reopening is 1st November. More roadworks at Thorney Toll have added time to X1 schedules this week and today was not impressive. Services east of King's Lynn faired well, but it was a different story west of Wisbech. Bruce reports services returning from Peterborough as follows : L11 37158 20 late, L12 37576 22 late and Y13 37568 6 late.
Heard from Syd today who says "20107 has been off for safety service and James managed a shot of it this evening which we thought you would be interested in. It will not be out yet as it needs brake re-lining.


The Beast tamed  ! Photo Copyright James Race.

 On the subject of the car numbers on X1 you mentioned, I may be able to clarify. The XL numbers are those on the 'Car Chart' or 'Bus Graph' ( take your pick, it is now the latter but was the former for centuries ) which is for the entire company. This is used for total mileages/ bus usage etc by Head Office and Engineers. The KL numbers are probably the local run-out car line numbers which show what a bus at the depot should do for the day. These can vary from day to day and each depot uses a slightly different system, but are linked to the duty roster and so a driver can look ahead and see what bus he can expect to take over. As each depot is the centre of its own Universe and has no interest in what happens elsewhere these can clash...hence the seperate company wide numbers used by Head Office. You may be interested to know that the XL codes are not in general daily use, but your blog codes do get referred to as it makes more sense! To add to the confusion the Kings Lynn duties are also KLxxxx so you may have got the KL7101 from the drivers duty..... I will find out for you ". Very interesting Syd - the codes I use have remained pretty much the same since I started following X1 proceedings a couple of moths after renumbering from X94.
Des was on the road today and reports "37156 - (Y9) 06:45 Gorleston - Peterborough  - On time, slight delay at Toftwood, road to single lane for surfacing work and auto lights were out. Oncoming traffic had right of way. After a break I took up L11, another B7 37158 on the 10.45 King's Lynn - Peterborough, what a disaster!
 I'll run throught the times -Lynn 3 late @ 10:48, Wisbech 4 late @ 11:22, roadworks at thorney toll - auto lights again, Thorney 20 late @ 12:00, arrive Queensgate bay 10 - speak to 2 passengers for rail station and ask if OK to board bus stations passengers and then onto rail station. That was OK with them. so returning with 37158 as the 12:05 ex Peterborough :  bay 17 8 late @ 12:22, Rail station 21 late @ 12:26, Thorney 15 late @ 12:44, roadworks at Thorney Toll GONE!!!, Guyhirn 16 late @ 12:56, Wisbech 20 late @ 13:16, K Lynn arrive 20 late @13:44. After a further break I was away again with 37575 - (K14) 15:02 Lynn to Lowestoft as far as Yarmouth. I departed K Lynn 8 late @15:10 gaining time back until Dereham 2 late @ 16:09. On time to depart Norwich @ 16:55 and on time into Yarmouth.
B10M coach  activity today was 20121 on K3 - I really must do this trip before 121 is retired - and 20126 which was on L8 this morning, but by this evening had become Y9 ending at Lynn. Conversely this morning's Y9 37156 seems to have become L8 this evening. One or two other anomalies occurred today. K19 was (I think) 37577, but 37572 was given a run out at 14.45 from Lynn to Peterborough and back before 577 once again worked forward. Y7 was 37569 to Lowestoft and freshly MOT'd 37565 back to Lynn.