Tuesday 23rd December 2014 ~ Merry Christmas

33806 heads for Peterborough on 13th December

Long time no blog once again, but the incident free life being enjoyed by the Enviro 400s continues to impress. An intensive programme of fault finding before a failure occurs on the road has meant that it is now several weeks since a breakdown has been reported in traffic. Minor ailments do crop up though and certainly there have been a few reports of malfunctioning wi-fi of late. 33816 has provided an unusual sight in the last fortnight by operating in service minus a T side advertisement. 33817 is still awaiting a vacancy at Full Circle to have its rear corner repaired and also in need of attention (although this may be given at King's Lynn) is 33814 which has a bent front offside upper deck bar (see illustration below) following an altercation in Peterborough. Mechanically though the buses enjoy a pretty faultless reputation.

33814 in Vancouver Avenue garage

Observations in the west in the lead up to Christmas have seen a few delays as traffic levels intensify. Worst offender seen this week so far was Monday's 14.15 Peterborough - Norwich which arrived in Wisbech exactly 30 late with 33812. At least the delay made it appear to some that this was the following service running on time ! Earlier on that day, 33814 had also been a victim of the heavy traffic in Peterborough and it was 22 late into Wisbech to work the 11.55 to Norwich.
Last Saturday I had a trip on the 12.55 X1 from Wisbech to King's Lynn - this time with 33813. Despite delays getting out of Wisbech and further congestion on the approaches to King's Lynn, the journey was accomplished in just 26 seconds over the 31 minutes allowed in the timetable. All stops were observed except Walton Highway and Eau Brink. So all in all quite commendable for the Saturday before Christmas.

33813 after a punctual and comfortable journey from Wisbech is seen at King's Lynn loading for Norwich.

Over in the East it is disappointing to report that vandalism has occurred on 33818 as seen here, lets hope the perpetrators are caught and punished .