Wednesday 16th February 2011 ~ Rare Working

Up until a couple of years ago, it was commonplace to see King's Lynn Scania single deckers substituting for X1 coaches. The advent of the Geminis largely put paid to this and last year - as far as we know - there was just a single sighting of a Scania on the X1, this was on 7th January 2010 when bad weather saw 65531 used on a short run to Peterborough and back.
Peter texted this morning to say that while travelling towards Norwich at Necton at 10.10 he had encountered 37157 followed almost immediately by 37568 - the latter showing 'sorry not in service' on its screen. Both buses had come out of Lowestoft this morning, but because of the circumstances, I'm not sure which was L10 and which L11. In the end 37157 continued through to Peterborough as L11, while L10 ran from King's Lynn to the Cathedral City and back with Scania 65528 !! It is, quite frankly, surprising that this sort of thing doesn't happen more often, but in recent times it has - following the withdrawal of most of the B10Ms - become common practice to cancel services when an incoming X1 has been delayed.
This was therefore the undisputed highlight if the day. The Beast was back today and was used on K1 following yesterday's repairs. Y13 yesterday was 37569, but it was late on the 21.50 Lynn to Peterborough and in fact I'm beginning to wonder if a substitute took this turn, as 569 was sidelined at Lynn today with a fuel problem.
Malcolm from Lowestoft kindly provided some sightings today, most notable of which was 20115 working the 14.38 Lowestoft to Beccles X2,  followed by the usual school contract. Michael Bryant reported this too and he adds, " I know you tipped me off at lunchtime Gerard that 20115 and 37565 might be spare today, but I wasn't prepared to find 20115 on the 006 Beccles schools run, followed by 37565 on the 007 !'
Meanwhile, our man in the know at Lowestoft says "Just thought you would like to know about 20102's movements last week. It was borrowed by Lowestoft on Friday, 11th February. This was because the engineers fell behind with servicing (due to a broken workshop door) and more buses would be unavailable than normal on Friday afternoon.
It arrived in time for Friday PM peak and performed on the X2 and an evening 99 trip. It might well have beeen used on the X1, but for the fact that it was needed back at Ipswich by 0700 Monday. In fact it went back on Sunday morning. Incidentally, the schools were NOT off this week, half term around here is w/c 20th February". Well good to have cleared up that little mystery and thanks to our source for that info.



Here is 65528 on its way to Peterborough - sadly not taken today, but on a sunnier occasion in 2009.  It looked very smart today as indeed it does here.