North East Buses

Stella performance from the GNE team today (Sunday 1st March). 6314 must have had a problem heading south to Middlesbrough and was almost instantly replaced by 6313, brought, presumably from the depot to M'bro. Top work.

Going back to what we are here for - talking about buses. Crusader 5313, which I guessing was a hastily summoned replacement for 6335 (X10 1400 trip ex Eldon Square) did put up a rather credible performance losing only a few minutes to arrival in Middlesbrough. Would be good to see some decent fleet in these services given that the dedicated 63xx vehicles are having reliability issues. In the schene of things this is though kinda academic. Anyone heard what is likely to be happening to services??

(18 Mar 2020, 7:48 pm)scanialover wrote [ -> ]Going back to what we are here for - talking about buses. Crusader 5313, which I guessing was a hastily summoned replacement for 6335 (X10 1400 trip ex Eldon Square) did put up a rather credible performance losing only a few minutes to arrival in Middlesbrough. Would be good to see some decent fleet in these services given that the dedicated 63xx vehicles are having reliability issues. In the schene of things this is though kinda academic. Anyone heard what is likely to be happening to services??

What was wrong with 6335? I travelled on this bus on the X9 service between Newcastle and Peterlee on Saturday, and the bus was comfortable and maintained schedule, sitting at 56mph on the A19.


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(18 Mar 2020, 7:50 pm)Dan wrote [ -> ]What was wrong with 6335? I travelled on this bus on the X9 service between Newcastle and Peterlee on Saturday, and the bus was comfortable and maintained schedule, sitting at 56mph on the A19.


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Passengers wise the seats are more comfortable than the normal allocation.

Might have been 6334 that was taken off. Didn't catch the fleet number when I got on. It would seem as thought it was a fault when it arrived at Gateshead on the way north, then while they sorced a replacement one of the spare/depot drivers brought it across to Eldon Square and back.

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Not sure about that one.

(18 Mar 2020, 8:09 pm)scanialover wrote [ -> ]Might have been 6334 that was taken off. Didn't catch the fleet number when I got on. It would seem as thought it was a fault when it arrived at Gateshead on the way north, then while they sorced a replacement one of the spare/depot drivers brought it across to Eldon Square and back.

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Not sure about that one.

BusTimes suggests it was 6334 that had the issues.

Can someone help with the link into Bus Times and the fleet details please?

(18 Mar 2020, 8:21 pm)scanialover wrote [ -> ]Can someone help with the link into Bus Times and the fleet details please?

https://bustimes.org/regions/NE

Click on what company you want, then scroll down to


Unofficial, incomplete fleet list

Michael wrotehttps://bustimes.org/regions/NE

Click on what company you want, then scroll down to


Unofficial, incomplete fleet list

But don't take what it reports as gospel!


(Basically the tracking is through the ticket machines, so if the ticket machine isn't set up to report correctly, the tracking won't be right.  There's many reports of vehicles tracking under a different identity!  From what I can see, the north east operators seem to be getting it pretty much right, but First in Bristol tracking should be regarded as a suggestion at best!)

Not yet found a way of making the link work??

(19 Mar 2020, 7:26 am)Ianthegoon wrote [ -> ]But don't take what it reports as gospel!


(Basically the tracking is through the ticket machines, so if the ticket machine isn't set up to report correctly, the tracking won't be right.  There's many reports of vehicles tracking under a different identity!  From what I can see, the north east operators seem to be getting it pretty much right, but First in Bristol tracking should be regarded as a suggestion at best!)

From what I've seen, the only times it's not correct is when a ticket machine fails during a journey and they swap it over. Even then I believe they program in the correct fleet number before installing it so the only issue is that they don't seem to track when they change machine mid-journey

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(19 Mar 2020, 7:33 am)scanialover wrote [ -> ]Not yet found a way of making the link work??

Go North East - https://bustimes.org/operators/go-north-east/vehicles
Arriva County Durham - https://bustimes.org/operators/arriva-durham-county/vehicles
Arriva Northumbria - https://bustimes.org/operators/arriva-northumbria/vehicles
Stagecoach Hartlepool - https://bustimes.org/operators/stagecoach-in-hartlepool/vehicles
Stagecoach North East - https://bustimes.org/operators/stagecoach-north-east/vehicles
Stagecoach Teesside - https://bustimes.org/operators/stagecoac...e/vehicles

(18 Mar 2020, 7:15 pm)mb134 wrote [ -> ]While I agree that people need to stop panic buying, and that the mentality of a great deal of those in this country is selfish and very "I'm alright Jack", the seriousness of a pandemic should not be underestimated. 

For most, yes, it will be a cold. However you can carry this thing asymptomatically during its incubation period - generally a few days for a virus. In that time think of the amount of people, surfaces etc you'll come into contact with, especially if not isolating. Those people may then be carers, family, social workers, NHS staff - all of which may then pass it across to someone who is very vulnerable to this. People need to start thinking about others - yes you might be okay, but where possible people need to be taking every precaution possible to make sure that they aren't in a position to become infected, or indeed transmit it.

Nice to read a sensible post after seeing several shocking idiotic ones. 

To those selfish people who think they don’t need to care or act responsibly because they’re young and healthy, or believe this is just a flu, spend a few moments watching this. You could just end up helping our health services and save the lives of your relatives, friends, neighbours & colleagues: 
https://youtu.be/edEr3-FnPbw

Sorry that’s off topic but it needed saying.
Back to buses...

Well said that man and thanks who posted the Bus Times links. Appreciate both

Meanwhile and talking of buses 6314 had a proper meltdown working the 1045 ex M'hro X9. Started at Dalton Park with what seemed to be transmissions/gearbox problems and despite our drivers best efforts, finally expired in Sunderland Road. Credit to the driver here and none to GNE engineering who suggested he limp it across to Eldon Square and back to Gateshead while the sourced a replacement. You had to be on it to know how impractical this was.