Thursday April 26th 2012 ~ Did I Really See That ?

What a strange day, beginning with 37156 on K1 - normally only a B7 duty on Saturdays. This was because 37569/70 were required to finish at Lynn tonight for work on their drive green systems this evening. During the morning 37576 took L10 10.15 King's Lynn - Peterborough replacing 37577 and then 90 minutes later Y13 had 37568 come off for 37577 forward. Next 37157 on K14 gave way to 37574 fresh off MOT.

This afternoon an accident on Guyhirn bank caused chaos. When I left work I saw 37569 coming into Wisbech from Churchill Road. With the time at 17.06, I assumed this was the 16.56 to Lowestoft running late - wrong - it missed the bus station and proceeded over Freedom Bridge to gain access to the A47 via Wisbech St. Mary. This was an extremely unusual manouevre and it turned out to be the late running K3, 16.48 Wisbech - Peterborough. It had travelled via the A47 bypass to Elme Hall then followed the A1101 to avoid the Guyhirn delay ! Meanwhile at Peterborough railway station, Peter was waiting for K3 17.35 to Wisbech which should have been 37569. At 17.55 37565 arrived on a very delayed K2, about 50 minutes late. Peter asked the driver if he could go to Wisbech, but no the driver said he was going straight through to Lynn as he was so late. "Well will you go down the Wisbech bypass ?" enquired Peter, "My wife could pick me up at one of the laybys ?". "Oh no" responded the driver "We are not allowed to do that". So rather frustrated Peter waited for K3 with 37569. This didn't turn up at the rail station at all and next was K4 with 37572 just a few minutes late on its 18.10 departure time and on time into Wisbech. The driver (Mr. Woodhouse) was jovial and he reminded Peter that from Monday the X1 will not be calling at the rail station while building work is carried out on the station frontage. More news on that as we have it.