Need a Loan? Part Two

Part two of our special post regarding the changes to vehicle emissions in Castle Meadow, Norwich will show an assortment of First group vehicles that were loaned in to cover for modifications to the Eastern Counties fleet.

First West Yorkshire supplied Volvo B7L & Volvo B7RLE, the latter being brand new 69329-69331 YJ08CDE/CDF/CDK, the B7L's came from York and were 60903/5 YG02DHM/DHO & 60924 YG02DHE.

First Manchester supplied Volvo B7RLE 66932 MX55FHG which arrived by mistake at Caister Road in Yarmouth before making the trip up the A47.

Leicester based Gemini 37146 YN06UPZ also arrived to assist but if memory serves me well it spent more time out of use than actually working, i pictured it whilst broken down outside Castle Mall in May 2008.

Another elusive vehicle which saw limited use whilst in Norfolk was First Glasgow B7L 61637 SJ51DHE, I never managed to capture her in use but David Waters did see her briefly working in Castle Meadow and let me have a copy of his photo.

It was quite a busy time in Norwich, the batch of Volvo B7TL ALX400's 30886-30903 were arriving from West Yorkshire and started life with Eastern Counties in the city before visiting most, if not all of the depots at some time in their life within the company.

Two Optare Solo's arrived at Great Yarmouth 50273/50274 S304/305EWU also from Yorkshire with plans to use them on the 4 service in the town, but they were short lived due to reliabilty issues and they moved on to Ipswich.

Back to Norwich and a few step entry Darts were still in use alongside an ever decreasing Olympian fleet, 2008 was certainly an interesting year for the camera in the city.