Thursday 29th July 2010 ~ Plan B

The X1 'day' largely depends on your location. Over here in the west, for example, my daily routine begins with a viewing of K2 & Y6 at Walpole Highway, normally during a pause in my journey to work outside Bruce's bungalow.
K2 is due at the Highway at 08.31 and often runs slightly early. This morning it was dead on cue with 37568 and one of the village regulars was caught out, however, the driver kindly stopped for him even though he was well short of the bus stop.
Westbound, Y6 is the first service from the coast, all previous ones having started at Lynn. Surprisingly, in view of the distance it has to travel, this is also a pretty good timekeeper and delays of more than 5 minutes are very rare. Today 37573 passed us 3 minutes late, but the clear path into Wisbech now that the schools traffic has finished meant it managed to be a minute ahead of schedule departing for Peterborough via the correct route down Nene Quay.
Unfortunately the punctuality described was misleading, as overall things were quite tardy today.
Viewed during the morning from my work were 37563 on Y9 right time and later 37572 17 late on L12. The intervening services took the A1101 route to Weasenham Lane and Bruce reports 37564 on Y7, 37574 on L8, 37566 on L11 and later 37570 on Y13. The latter was only 5 late from Wisbech on the 13.56 to Lowestoft. L10 was not seen, but turned out to be 20127. The afternoon began Ok with 37160 on K18 being the worst performer, seen by Bruce heading west 18 late. Coach 20126 was in charge of K1 and this was about 10 late.

An A47 incident is believed to have caused some delays at teatime. K4 with one of King's Lynn's best drivers managed to be 29 late through Walpole at 17.32 with 37577. Meanwhile, poor old 20127 expired at Hopton-on-Sea working the 16.25 from Lowestoft with a steering issue. 37157 which was in the area heading for Lowestoft on K14 was turned around and went back west in place of 127, but not before L11 had overtaken it with 37566. 157 was noted arriving at Lynn at 20.38 with 'not in service' showing, hardly surprising as it was an hour late.
In contrast 37573 on Y6 was viewed leaving Vancouver Avenue garage after a top up at 20.35, about 5 minutes ahead of schedule. Because of the failure of L10, 37564 off Y7 was started up to work instead and this eventually left King's Lynn for Peterborough 26 minutes late at 20.16. At least though this did run, whereas L12 20.50 to Peterborough was cancelled despite 37572 only arriving about 10 minutes late.
You may recall that on Tuesday we reported the appearance of 20127 on L12, and Syd confirms that it was a replacement. 20107 (The Beast) was due to work L12 but it was unable to do so after being hit by an Anglian bus in Lowestoft bus station (perhaps 107s fame is unpopular !). In what is believed to be an unprecedented case, the passengers AND driver of 107 travelled on the next Service 1 to Great Yarmouth where 20127 was ready to work forward, there being no bus available at Lowestoft to deputise.