Wednesday 13th August 2008 ~ In Sickness and In Health !

20121 - the Messiah ? - No just a very naughty bus !

Sometimes buses are taken off the road or delayed for trivial reasons - yesterday morning's incident with 20509 for example, where nothing more than a loose windscreen wiper caused a minor delay. Other times it can be mechanical failure (actually quite rare) or that other fact of life - the passengers !

A chain of events this evening was quite entertaining for the observer, but obviously inconvenient and to some degree unpleasant for those involved at the sharp end and they have my sympathy. K6 (16.59 Lynn - Peterborough) ran late this evening and on arrival at Peterborough, 20121 (yes, tell me about it) expired with an electrical fault. 20109 which had just come in to King's Lynn from Lowestoft (J11) was hastily commandeered and returned east at 19.42 on K6 as a replacement. No sooner had this happened than 20141 arrived at Vancouver Avenue complete with passengers on L13 16.55 Lowestoft - Pbo, one of the latter having been ill at the rear of the bus. 20127 off the 19.24 arrival from Lowestoft (L12) was then provided to work forward to Peterborough departing only 13 late. As if this wasn't enough 20111 then came in on the 20.07 arrival from Peterborough (Y8) with more passenger mess to clear up. Not a good evening for the staff involved as you will appreciate, although they coped admirably and should be congratulated for the minimum of fuss and delay with which they executed proceedings.

Colin brought back 20121 at 20.30 for more fitters attention.

Earlier in the day 65532 worked J10 06.40 from Gorleston but came off at Lynn for 20109 - yes it was Lynn's 20109 fresh off an exam which you heard this morning Bruce, welcoming you back from hols and sounding like a bag of bolts when it passed your house !

There seemed to be delays between Peterborough and Wisbech from mid morning onwards and 20503 on Y14 08.25 ex Lowestoft ( a notoriously poor timekeeper) was 10 late leaving Wisbech but this had escalated to 24 late on its return. K5 15.48 Peterborough - Yarmouth was the worst offender with 20142, it was 34 late from Wisbech in one of today's deluges with 20509 (wipers working hard lol) hard on its heels five minutes behind it on K7.

Michael reported 20124 (this was possibly the one seen by Sam which was unidentified) and 20131 both out onthe X2 all day today, but the 'Lynn diagram' (K19) began with 20103, then had Oly 34950 in the middle of the day before 20118 took over for the return to Lynn.