Presumably buses being held up by queues of cars waiting to get petrol. Locally Stagecoach was having problems keeping to time on the City 7 at Stapleford for that reason.
That is a very late start from the starting point. My experience of Bedford is that when an inbound service is late they tell the driver to take one of the spare vehicles parked up in the bus station. If the vehicle for the 50 was that late then they should have given the driver another bus to minimise delay.
Anyway I was forced out today to get winner 10873 so I did musical 22835 on a 50 to town. I have heard passengers listening to music on buses without headphones so this was a new twist with the driver giving us the benefit of his musical tastes. I am beginning to think Kettering drivers are a law to themselves.
I had planned to do 19893 on the 1530 Flitwick 2 but it collapsed so they had to send for red van man to batter it. This forced me aboard 37231 on the 1545 9 just as 19888 was rustled up for the 15 minutes late 2. I bailed at Harrowden Road shops for my first sighting of 10873 on a 9a back to town. It would seem our feathered friends were not enamoured with it judging by the amount of slime coating the upstairs front window.
As I had time to kill I did 10873 back out on the 1630 9b. I had intended to go to Mile Road but a combination of the door refusing to close for a couple of minutes and the panic stricken road rats blocking the road outside the petrol station forced me to get off at Brackley Road but at least the rain now could help clean the window of 10873.
19698 had been on the Hitchin runs but got ripped to do the route 6 bratex which I suspect should have been 19888 but the failure of 19893 mucked things up. 36937 replaced 19698 on the Hitchin service off the 9's. Anyway 19698 produced on my 9 back to town before going onto a 53 which seems an odd diagram. I was left to do the 1716 50 home with 22832 on time again.
The tracker now informs me we have lost 27642 as it was showing up on Cambridge services today which is news to me.