Monday 12th December - Thursday 15th December 2011 ~ No News Is Good News

Monday 12th December : The service seemed to cope well with the busy roads today. 37575 on the 15.15 Lynn to Peterborough (K1) was 10 late through Wisbech, but all other diagrams were just a few minutes behind time. 36180 was on K17 and 37158/574 were out of service along with 37569.
The A47 was closed between Wisbech & Guyhirn again after an accident this evening. L10 was noted passing through Walton Highway around 22.25 (15 late) on the 21.10 ex Peterborough. The X2 still sees Palatine workings and today Malcolm saw 34157 on the 13.40 ex Norwich. President 32210 was spare in Lowestoft bus station.

Tuesday 13th December : Chris rang this morning to say that 37577 had expired at Wisbech Cromwell Road Tesco lights at around 09.30. It was at the head of a queue of traffic with its hazards on and with its driver on the phone. The problem was trivial though as a few minutes later it was on the move again and was seen returning just 9 late.

37563 arrives at Wisbech this morning on K3 08.05 Peterborough - Lowestoft

37578 was stopped at Lynn today receiving attention to some minor collision damage. 37576 on L10 10.15 Lynn to Peterborough was 16 late from Wisbech, but after this delays were slight until K15 with 36180 which passed Wisbech 16 late westbound and 20 late returning to Lowestoft.
Des says " I was driving 37160 on the 08.15 Lowestoft - Peterborough (Y13), however, a problem occurred on departing the James Paget Hospital as the exit was blocked by a low loader - in the end had to monitor the traffic light seqence and make a safe exit via the entrance road ! Returning east from Lynn with L10, 37576 had a variety of Adblu errors showing, but then the display would totally clear for a few miles before reappearing. President 32211 which has a reconditioned engine was considered reliable enough to work the 13.40 Norwich to Lowestoft X2 today, but 32210 was still in the bus station spare.
Wednesday 14th December : Timekeeping was pretty good until late afternoon, though maybe it was roadworks at Fransham which caused K19, K1 & K2 15.18/15.48/16.18 departures from Wisbech westbound all to run 10 late. 37160 was due MOT prep this week, but it continued in service until the day of its test (believed to be today) so must have been in prime condition. Today it started out on K3, but was replaced by 36180 off servicing for the 09.33 to Lowestoft. Y6 had 37574 taken off the duty today, but why is unclear. 37563 replaced it. On the X2, 32210 had been relegated to a Bernard Matthews contract (seen by Malcolm) while Michael Bryant saw no less than three Palatines working on the X2 itself.

Thursday 15th December : A large number of swaps occurred today. As early as 08.00 it looks like 37565 came off K19 for servicing to be replaced by 37574. Y9 with 37563 had an adblu problem and 37576 took over for the 09.45 Lynn to Peterborough. Next change was on Y6 where 37570 was off at 11.00 for 37565 to work forward. 570 was pronounced OK soon afterwards and when 37157 on Y13 meeded attention, 570 took over its turn as the 11.45 to Peterborough. It just did a return trip to the city before a repaired 37563 replaced it as the 14.32 to Lowestoft. As a consequence, 37569 - still undergoing bodywork repairs (+ the absent 37156) were the only X1 buses off the road today.