Search This Blog

26/09/2013

Wednesday September 25th 2013 ~ Friday's Child

With 37568 now effectively out of the X1 fleet and 37159 still at Full Circle, it was imperative that the buses behaved to keep the X1 running today. Last night though, 37566 - the bus that was built on a Friday, or so I reckon - started making funny noises on L12-XL18. On arrival at Lowestoft it was decided that 37157 off K14-XL01 should replace it for the return trip westbound. This meant that Lowestoft would be short of a vehicle this morning. To correct the situation, King's Lynn engineer Steve took 37569 over to Lowestoft at 5am in  order that it could work L12-XL18 07.45 to Peterborough today. 37566 was then repaired and with 37156 due for a service and working K18-XL05, it was decided to put 37566 on K18 so that 37156 could return to Lynn for attention. Meanwhile 37567 was hastily repaired and put back together so that at least one vehicle was spare.
Whilst all this was going on, two more additions to the fleet arrived :
YX63LJO - 33808 and YX63LJU - 33809 the latest arrivals at King's Lynn seen this evening.
33808 & 33809 have the X1 destinations in correct route order below the top deck windows. 33808 has the leather seats advert on the back and 33809 the retail therapy version. Yesterday's two arrivals, 33806/7 both had the air chill advert, so it looks as though there are at least three different styles of promotion.
Having travelled 170 miles on trade plates, any teething troubles with the new buses are bound to manifest themselves. So far there have been minor problems with air conditioning, hydrostatic oil, and one has a nox fault, but all quite trivial in the grand scheme of things and nothing more than one would expect with a brand new fleet. 33810/11 are expected to arrive tomorrow.
Finally today , something I've wanted to post for ages but have refrained from doing so, It's the fine old board in the garage at King's Lynn detailing the day's car allocation. Lovingly handwritten by Richard and his colleagues on a daily basis, it is a great survivor in this computerised age !

No comments: