November 27th 2019: The Long Sutton Jigsaw

© Graphic Steven Knight Media

​The upgrading of vehicles on specific services or networks can always present challenges for engineers are the vehicles are changed over. Normally this can be achieved over a couple of days, but sometimes it takes longer. Sometimes it like doing a Jigsaw Puzzle.
The transfer of Long Sutton depot from Stagecoach East to Stagecoach East Midlands could be considered to be a Jigsaw Puzzle with added difficulty. All the pieces are available but just not at the same time. Temporary pieces have to be used until the correct pieces are available.
Those correct pieces are Scania/Enviro 400s being transferred from Stagecoach Oxfordshire. Seven are due, five had been transferred by the start of this month but only one was in service, the others are being tidied up and repainted. So, to get the Stagecoach East Midlands Long Sutton operation up and running, various buses from Worksop and Hull depots are on loan. That is on top of a number of permanent transfers from Worksop, Skegness and Hull depots.
Currently, just one of the original Long Sutton allocation - Trident 18348 remains in service there. The remaining Dart SLFs, Tridents and Enviro 400s were shipped out to Skegness, Worksop and Hull.
So most of the Jigsaw pieces seem to be in place but then one of the Darts (34530) left Skegness for Scunthorpe and we understand that the other (34426) may now be operating in the Newark area, which is an outstation of Lincoln. And only yesterday it emerged that Trident 18418, which had initially been transferred to Skegness is now operating from Grimsby depot.
So that just leaves Gainsborough and Mansfield depots without any former Long Sutton buses on their books, unless there are some replacement Jigsaw pieces on the way!

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© Ian Knott

© Sam Boothby