Thursday June 2nd 2011 ~ Maintenance Changes

37563 which had been out of traffic at King's Lynn since last Friday evening returned to service today after repairs and a safety service. This could possibly be the start of servicing of the 37563-9 batch being transferred to King's Lynn. The opportunity was also taken to remove the outdated Bennetts advert from the rear which had been in situ since early last December. 37563 was on K4 today.
Matthew contacted me from Lowestoft to report 20352 on K3 and 20126 on Y9 and the latter was snapped by Bruce :

The eagle eyed may be able to spot Mr. Speed at the controls, he says "20126 - 09.45 King's Lynn to Peterborough, departed 5 late at 09.50 and arrived at Peterborough rail station 11 late at 11.10.  Because of this the 11.05 to Lowestoft departed 8 late from the rail station and we were still 7 late from the bus station. Arrival in King's Lynn was 17 late at 12.41.
This late running was purely down to the slower entrance and exit times of the passengers. (The 09.45 Lynn departure is the first OAP free bus of the day westbound) and the amount of luggage that either had to be lifted into the small inboard luggage area or stowed in the rear boot. The lady that boarded at Terrington St John and needed a lengthy stop to to use the conveniences in Wisbech didn't help either". 
Oh well, it made a nice picture Des and don't forget, not so long ago all these services were coaches. A Lynn driver commented on 20352 recently that it was a pleasure to drive a proper vehicle on the Peterborough road again, but may be the passengers find that coach awkward too.
Jim Long writes "A sudden urge to have an afternoon out resulted in me taking the train from Ipswich to Norwich for the 14.25 X1 departure for King's Lynn and would you believe it, it was 20352 !



20352 pauses at Swaffham while working K3 12.55 from Lowestoft today. Photo : Jim Long

  Well I had never ridden on a B7R before and yes it was very pleasant, she responded very well indeed. We had a very nice young lady driver with tight blonde curly hair and  glasses who was very capable indeed. The view was bl--dy awful, I should have course sat further back,that was my only complaint.
We arrived at around 16.15,this didn't leave us much time to do a great deal, my own fault for getting a mad rush of blood ! We returned on the 17.32 to Norwich this time on 37574. We couldn't get a front seat up stairs but the next one back, did get a front seat at Dereham and then realised this wasn't meant for anyone else other than a midget, but,the view was great.  On our way into Dereham at Toftwood we passed 20126 heading for Peterboro this was around 18.25 and then 37569 was passed at Hockering at 18.50.  Finally, as we pulled into Surrey Street, 37579 was then pulling off the slope for Peterboro. Although it was an afternoon of bum achers, I enjoyed the trip.".

The latest service of the day belonged to K14 12.15 King's Lynn to Peterborough, on which 37159 was noted 18 late. It had managed to make up 3 minutes by the time it passed through Wisbech again on its return eastbound.
37157 on K16 and 37158 on K18 were both slightly late and both very noisy when seen this afternoon. Malcolm says "All I can report today is Y7 with 37567 and L8 with 37572, but 37156 was spare in Lowestoft bus station". 37575 was spare at King's Lynn today where it was serviced.
An unscheduled swap this evening involved Y6 which had 37568 taken off with blocked screen washer jets and 37569 off L11 replaced it in the 20.35 to Lowestoft.