Friday April 27th - Sunday April 29th 2012 ~ A Little Report

It is quite nice when the X1 behaves from an old bloggers point of view. That pretty much sums up the past few days :
Friday 27th April
37571/578 appear to have been the spare buses today as everything else was seen in service. Timekeeping seemed very good for a Friday, for example K1 and K3 were at the Southgates inbound from Lowestoft at 15.04 and 16.05 which is pretty much on time. L11 12.05 from Peterborough was 13 late at Walton Highway with 37565 and K14 was seen with 37577 passing the Southgates coming in from Peterborough at 15.00, around 11 late.
Something odd happened with L8 today, it was 37574 into Lynn from Lowestoft at 09.00, but was later seen at Lowestoft by Malcolm with 37568 arriving 8 late, then this evening it was back to being 37574 again, presumably having taken over for the 18.50 Lynn - Peterborough.

Saturday 28th April

The B7 turns are usually fairly predictable on weekdays. K3, K5, Y7 or Y9, L11, K14, K16 and K18 are the favourites as these can be accomplished on a full tank of fuel. Sometimes though they end up on L10, L12 or Y13 and this entails refuelling at Lynn during the day. If both K14 and K16 which finish at Lowestoft get a B7 this invariably means that next day, one will be required to refuel as all the Lowestoft originating turns are long ones except L11. On Saturdays the diagrams are slightly different and K1 finishes at Lowestoft instead of Yarmouth, consequently it is very often a B7 and today 37156 did this turn.
At peak times today, delays were up to 15 minutes, but by late afternoon things had eased. Only two turns are  believed to have changed vehicles, L11 started out with 37572, but later this was on L12. 37564 came off L12 and 37563 is thought to have taken L11 forward.

Sunday 29th April

37574 was in trouble this afternoon on K5. It had an electrical fault and was replaced by 37563. All services were B9s today.
For all you number crunchers out there, we haven't had a look at the mileages on the X1 vehicles for many a while. Here's how they are fairing (mileages as of this evening)
37572 418700
37579 415100
37575 413200
37578 408500
37574 408100
37573 406700
37570 405800
37567 403600
37565 395100
37576 393800
37568 393400
37564 389300
37563 388600
37569 386400
37577 372500
37566 368700
37157 356300
37160 350700
37158 332500
37159 325800
37156 320500
37571 268300

Incredibly, the difference between 37572 in first place and 37566 in 16th is 50,000 miles ! As we have said before may be 566 was built on a Friday afternoon. 37571 actually has 299,300 on the clock but this is incorrect as after it returned from accident repairs it was fitted with a replacement speedo which had 31,000 more miles registered !!! Reduced mileages for buses which have spent prolonged periods out of service are evident, particularly with 37156 and 37577 as well as of course, 37571. Finally just to note that 37572 being the highest mileage Gemini and 37571 the lowest have a mere 150,000 miles between them.

Watch out for some timetable anomalies in my next blog ..........