Radio One's Big Weekend ~ Part Three

Welcome to part three of our special posts about Radio One's Big Weekend. If you haven't read part one or two yet, follow the links! I hear they're very interesting reads! 

You might be wondering what else there is to report, as we've already covered the loaned in buses, the extra routes and the night time happenings. Well as part of the vehicle movements for the weekend, some Norwich buses ended up operating in Yarmouth which seeing as we've now learned they're going to be repainted imminently, it gave probably gave us the final chance to capture them in Yarmouth in their current guise.

In hope of capturing them in service, I took the trip up to Yarmouth on Anglian's number 7 service and after buying lunch, I headed up to FirstGreat Yarmouth's depot to see if I could spy any of the loaned vehicles.

Norwich's Blue Line branded 36176 BD11CGE and 36179 BD11CDY outside Caister Road's bus depot

As you can see from the above photo, my walk from the town centre was rewarded with two Gemini's out on the forecourt awaiting their next duty. This made me a bit more hopeful about catching them out in service later on during the day, but at least I'd got a shot of them in Great Yarmouth and that was my original goal when I set out that morning. 

So I started walking back to the town, this time down Northgate Street rather than through the cemetries just in case a bus went past, and after photographing 32058 W218XBD in her new livery for the first time I rounded the corner onto Priory Plain. Luckily, I just happened to check my shoulder at the right minute because as I did so, I glimpsed 36178 BD11CDX making her way from Vauxhall Holiday Park on the first day of the summer service 3 to Hemsby Beach. For more on that, click here.

So that got me very excited, so it was a bit of a disappointment when after an hour of standing on my favourite spot just opposite Sainsbury's that the only other shot I got was this:

36170 BD11CFP

I wasn't quite sure where it was going or what it had been doing, but fortunately, Steve W was on hand later in the day to capture the same vehicle working the Eastern side of the X1 between Norwich and Lowestoft.

Norwich's 36170 working the X1 in Acle
© SteveW (Steve's Bus & Train Page)

He also seemed to manage what I couldn't and photographed a couple in normal service.

36179 BD11CDY at James Paget Hospital on the 1 to Martham
© SteveW (Steve's Bus & Train Page)

and finally, 36176 BD11CGE operating to James Paget Hospital on the 8,
just infront of Volvo Olympian 34108 W435CWX
© SteveW (Steve's Bus & Train Page)

So thanks to Steve for allowing me to reproduce those here, and that brings our special post to an end. As far as I'm aware, all displaced buses are now back where they should be, after one of the biggest weekends in the region in terms of bus operations with the successful trip to Wembley adding to the masses of photographs taken.

To see photos of buses operating to and from Radio One's Big Weekend, see our flickr album here.

And to see photos of vehicles at Wembley last week, see the album here. This one's only got one photo in it at the moment but more will be uploaded very shortly!