(12 Jan 2014, 12:17 pm)Bazza Houston Cross Tyne was a good brand for 9 they should bring it back but on different vehicles Doxford Clipper was good i liked that Black Cats i agree with Michael should have been red and white mainly because it goes past the Stadium Of Light and i am a Sunderland Supporter too like Michael Derwent Ranger was good on 47 canny good brand til these vehicles were refurbished and repainted purple for Orbit then went to gateshead from winlaton Magic Roundabout was an ok brand but was too much i liked it though X3, 99/99A, 71, X22 and 27X will probs not get a brand due to the PVR being low Washington Street Shuttle might return probs with a mix of Versas and Solos West Durham Swift would be ideal to bring back when they got the Angel cascases i thought they were gonna get a brand put on there but X25 should get branded as a simple X25, 13/14 something to do with its durham heritage 15/15A something like Venture express but the gateshead local routes will be ideal for 64/64A/95/95A

(12 Jan 2014, 12:20 pm)VolvoMarkII Fast Cats is a pointless brand. Nothing 'fast' about it on the X35 end!

(12 Jan 2014, 12:22 pm)aureolin I hope not. Awful brand on awful buses.

(12 Jan 2014, 12:18 pm)aureolin I think someone (andreos1?) has touched upon this before, and that it may be related to the former limestone mining around the areas it serves between Consett and Chester Le Street.

(12 Jan 2014, 12:20 pm)VolvoMarkII Fast Cats is a pointless brand. Nothing 'fast' about it on the X35 end!

(12 Jan 2014, 8:24 am)Dan Stagecoach can hardly compare to Go North East - the latter's fleet has approximately 200 more vehicles and their network size is huge compared to Stagecoach's.

You rarely see Stagecoach trying out new things (I admit - last year - they added a higher frequency on services in Newcastle and introduced an extension to Seaburn on service 23 in Sunderland), and I have a feeling Stagecoach's 'steady profit levels' are shown clearly by the lack of investment in certain depots, which must be pretty low for the lack of investment up until last year (or if they are high, why are SNE not investing profit back into the company like GNE?)
Teesside is highly neglected I feel. Go North East at least spread their investment out into depots evenly, where it can be justified. Stagecoach just don't seem to do that - with one depot getting all investment (Sunderland last year) and others left to cope with the cascades which are quite old now too.

I'd prefer a network which changes (often for the best) if Go North East are maximising profit levels and giving customers the best possible buses on those routes affected by change.

(12 Jan 2014, 12:32 pm)palatine3833 The two Newcastle and South Shields depots for Stagecoach have received huge investments in terms of vehicles and yet they seem to still bring in the money. I think the main problem is, Go North East do try and meddle with their services too much, so much that people don't know whether they're coming or going. Unfortunately, the majority of their plans put their profits before the customer demand.

(12 Jan 2014, 12:32 pm)palatine3833 The two Newcastle and South Shields depots for Stagecoach have received huge investments in terms of vehicles and yet they seem to still bring in the money.

(12 Jan 2014, 12:39 pm)Dan Newcastle I agree will bring in the money, which is why a great deal of Enviro 400s have been purchased. Even still, you're looking at the latest batch (Hybrids) being from 2011. It's 2014 now.

South Shields... I agree less. Don't get me wrong, it will bring in a lot of money (there wouldn't be much point having its operations otherwise)... But I can't help but feel that if they were to play around with services and perhaps introduce a few more, they may be better off. They'd stand a higher chance of bigger profits and they would therefore be able to re-invest it into the fleets to provide customers with better vehicles.

In regards to plans putting profits before customer demand... I definitely disagree. Customers are who GNE get their profits from - if the demand is there and great enough, a service will be operated. If the demand for a service is small and it's not generating profit (run by run), that specific run will be axed. While it's great some operators justify operating underused services by looking at overall profit levels or looking at services they connect to, it's just not a particularly effective way of actually making a great deal of profit if you ask me.

(12 Jan 2014, 1:10 pm)Bazza Houston question for dan when is the bi-weekly news update gonna be out?

(12 Jan 2014, 1:11 pm)Dan About 19 minutes, if I can type it fast enough

(12 Jan 2014, 1:14 pm)Bazza Houston sounds good so far

(12 Jan 2014, 12:32 pm)palatine3833 The two Newcastle and South Shields depots for Stagecoach have received huge investments in terms of vehicles and yet they seem to still bring in the money. I think the main problem is, Go North East do try and meddle with their services too much, so much that people don't know whether they're coming or going. Unfortunately, the majority of their plans put their profits before the customer demand.

(12 Jan 2014, 2:26 pm)Greg in Weardale You've got it exactly.

(12 Jan 2014, 2:30 pm)Tom So as all of the Solar (excluding 5210) will be staying at Deptford, will no other SPD's be withdrawn other than Deptfords?

(12 Jan 2014, 2:30 pm)Tom So as all of the Solar (excluding 5210) will be staying at Deptford, will no other SPD's be withdrawn other than Deptfords?

(12 Jan 2014, 2:34 pm)Dan Of course, one or two B10BLE vehicles will also become available at the end of the month if the X36 is to be operated by Solars...
With that in mind, maybe one or two could go elsewhere to replace SPDs?

The remaining SPDs in the fleet after next week will all be withdrawn with the "Cobalt Clipper" cascades.