Thursday 14th August 2014 ~ 100,000 Miles

Following last week's incident with the Wisbech diversion, the X1 has been travelling from the Horsefair Bus Station down the A1101 Churchill Road turning right into Weasenham Lane before rejoining the normal route on Cromwell Road. John Knight reports that temporary bus stops have been installed in Weasenham Lane to cater for passengers who normally use the stop located between Oldfield Lane and the Weasenham Lane Junction. This is despite the fact that the normal route down Nene Quay has been open westbound as advertised. May be it is deemed a better option to use the alternative route in both directions.
33807 has been absent from the route since the beginning of the month after its gearbox became unserviceable following its failure near Narborough on 1st. After an investigation it was decided that it should be taken to Great Yarmouth where the facilities are more suited to heavy engineering. It arrived there earlier this week, but this has left King's Lynn with just a single spare vehicle which has fortunately been sufficient thus far.
Not a great deal else to report, the King's Lynn bypass has now reopened and buses are no longer travelling via South Lynn. King's Lynn garage are currently short of drivers and adverts for recruitment have appeared on the companies Twitter feed. The new timetable requires two additional car lines which are yet to be allocated drivers, but up to now a full service has been run with no cancellations I believe.

A driver I spoke to tonight says the Enviros do vary in their performance. As we have mentioned before, 33803 is definitely not a good one and is rather sluggish, while 33814 is just the opposite and is a favourite. The Yarmouth based Enviros have settled in now although 33821 had the indignity of suffering a puncture at the James Paget Hospital on 7th August see picture below

The X2 continues to see occasional appearances of single deck vehicles recently noted were on 6th August 44513 on the 14.35 to Norwich with 42358 working the 14.25 ex Norwich. Malcolm also reports a correction, it was 34186 which worked a Martham service on 5th not 34188 as previously reported. On 6th 34114 put in an appearance on the 10.00 Lowestoft - Martham and next day 44531 was on the 09.45 X2 from Norwich and 34186 came in again, this time on the 13.59 from Martham. On 12th it was 34114 again, on the 08.59 from Martham.
The first X1 Enviro to break the 100,000 mile barrier is 33811 which has achieved this in 10.5 months. An astonishing feat I'm sure you will agree.

33811 about to depart from King's Lynn for Norwich on Saturday 9th August. Photo copyright : Andy Gibbs.

33811 after another days X1 graft. Note the Commonwealth Games support logo prominent in the leading lower deck window.  14th August 2014.

The next Enviro to reach the 100,00 miles mark is likely to be 33812 (current mileage 98284).

 John Wilson writes to say that former X1 coack 20122 , still in use as a driver trainer, was noted in Vancouver Avenue recently. John originally thought his sighting was on a visit to the tip on the 6th but then adds "Sorry Gerard - I'm told I went to the dentist on Weds a.m. so it was a different day I went past Vancouver Avenue and saw 20122  there.  I get so much excitement these days with both a trip to the tip and dentist in the same week. Must make you look forward to retirement! Now if you were to say to me "was it Monday or Tuesday?", I would reply "yes" with a degree of certainty. Yours unspecifically, and with a promise not to write too often". 

Always a pleasure to hear from you John, your sense of humour is certainly not on the wane.

This reminds me, thanks to all who have contacted me recently with info for the blog, all much appreciated.