Friday March 18th 2011 ~ Farewell Old Faithfuls

Bruce made his weekly trip to view Rowan Road compound this morning. To his dismay he discovered that two of the withdrawn B10Ms, 20106 and 20118 had departed for - presumably - a scrapyard, most likely the one at Erith in Kent, as this seems to be the preferred option for First Eastern vehicles.
Here are some reminders of better days for them......

Here is 20106 - never an X1 regular until its last year in service, photographed approaching Walton Highway on February 3rd 2008. It was working the Sunday 08.40 Yarmouth to Peterborough having recently been reinstated to traffic. At one time it was allocated to the shortlived rail replacement pool. More recently it had been stored at Rowan Road  minus its engine.

20118 was a long time Norwich vehicle. Here it is seen on its first ever day on the X1,  October 29th 2007 working the 14.18 Peterborough to Lowestoft near Faulkner's Tunnel. Considering 118s poor reputation for pulling away from junctions, it was a wonder it lasted as long as it did, it being withdrawn in the Summer of 2010. 



Here are both coaches photographed together at Rowan Road after relegation to working the Hunstanton schools contracts on October 4th 2009.

X1 work was still sometimes to be had though and final appearances on the service were on 11/12/09 for 20106 and 25/6/10 for 20118. Photo by kind permission of Peter Barclay.

 As if in mourning for the two departed coaches, 20126 was not used today and a full low floor service was the consequence. Even when the noisy 37569 had to be taken off L10 at King's Lynn this morning, apparently overheating, 37158 was there to step in the breach.
Friday timekeeping is of course notorious for its laxity, but today was exceptional.  37571 back on K17 even managed to be two minutes early from Wisbech on the 14.18 to Peterborough.

Now then if you click on the following link, you will find something else exceptional. Mr. Speed has produced an X1 mileage chart. Well done that man !
https://spreadsheets0.google.com/ccc?authkey=CMKu3P0N&hl=en_GB&key=t5A7Y-RBSF1yCheaMBZwLRQ&hl=en_GB&authkey=CMKu3P0N#gid=1