Saturday January 8th 2011 ~ On The X1 !

It was our beer jaunt to Stamford today. This saw me in the Wisbech Wetherspoons at the strange hour of 08.25 to meet the others for breakfast. For those who need to know such things, they don't serve beer until 9am. We then trotted along to Wisbech Horsefair to await the arrival of L8 which duly appeared with 37574.
A swift journey was only interrupted by our driver having to effect an emergency stop on Guyhirn bank after the van in front of us decided to cross the road into a layby with zero notice. Thankfully the brakes on 574 were excellent and we continued without further ado. Something I've not noticed on other Geminis was the swaying at top speed which was certainly remarked upon by most of my friends. Bruce has mentioned this before and I now see what he means.
On arrival at Peterborough rail station we adjourned to buy tickets to Stamford, which thanks to engineering work, was a replacement coach service. Just before we departed at 11.05, we saw Mr. Speed no less, arrive with 37564 on L9. There being no alternative, he then blocked us in momentarily while he stopped for passengers.
Our return trip saw us into Peterborough for the 20.10 back to Wisbech which just happened to be diagram L8 again and true to form was 37574. Our driver couldn't park in the usual place due to the rail replacement coaches and very enterprisingly reversed into the short stay car park to enable us all to board. I gave him an X1 blog calendar for his trouble and we had a friendly chat.
The return journey was swift and uneventful and again today's trips were a good advert for the service.
Whilst all this was going on, 37563/566 & 37579 were the only non runners in an all low floor day.