(20 Mar 2023, 2:17 am)Drifter60 According to the GNE website, it seems it’s just Riverside with planned cancellations tomorrow, which has been the case for a while now, in the main. It make you wonder why the 58 was moved back to Riverside when they’re struggling to cover lots of the services they already had, another - dare I say it - short sighted decision?

(20 Mar 2023, 4:30 am)Dan Every other depot is now fully (even over-)staffed. All willing volunteers to temporarily transfer to Riverside have been used up, which is why GNE is now running extra work such as Metro Replacement again, but not from Riverside.

Riverside is expected to be fully staffed by the end of this month.

Moving the 58 back to Riverside was the right decision - I have previously explained the cost savings associated with this (so crucial for a loss-making company), as well as the fact lost mileage at Riverside can be spread across a wide number of services rather than concentrated on a very small number (customer impact is far greater when there is lost mileage at Washington).


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(20 Mar 2023, 11:20 am)Drifter60 I know you have, I have seen the post where you mentioned that, but if that’s the argument it begs the question why it was ever considered in the first place. Surely it made financial sense - on balance - at one stage, otherwise the 58 wouldn’t have ended up at Washington in the first place. I appreciate the remote changeovers were an additional cost that didn’t need to be there but the fact that Gateshead still have loads of cancellations today I’d still suggest that maybe the albeit temporary arrangements could have lasted a little longer yet, especially if as you say, Gateshead depot will have more staff available quite soon.

(31 Mar 2023, 1:34 pm)Unber43 Severe Delays on 56/27, they should turn at Gateshead, allow people to use any service from Gateshead to newcastle, and 1/58/57 from Newcastle to Gateshead

Or have 2 vehicles at Gateshead for 27, and 2 at Sunderland for active vehicle replacement therefore you've got a 30 min layover for each bus to stop delayed operations

(31 Mar 2023, 1:59 pm)Unber43 Not plus two drivers, every 56 changes so it will literally cause no difference, just two buses will just park up. And the driver will just take 1 which is there and drive it into the stand for their duty.

(31 Mar 2023, 1:59 pm)Unber43 Not plus two drivers, every 56 changes so it will literally cause no difference, just two buses will just park up. And the driver will just take 1 which is there and drive it into the stand for their duty.

(31 Mar 2023, 8:39 pm)mb134 Aye just have 2 deckers parked up ready to go at all times, won't add any cost to the route at all.

(31 Mar 2023, 8:40 pm)Unber43 If they're parked at the Depot, and two engineeres just drive them up and get the shuttle back no not really.

(31 Mar 2023, 8:45 pm)mb134 But you're still needing to add 2 deckers to the fleet allocation of the depot to ensure 2 are always sat spare?

(31 Mar 2023, 8:51 pm)Unber43 Just when the Metro is off, but i dont think it would be a bad idea to add a PVR 1 to have a longer layover as they do struggle throughout the day aswell

(31 Mar 2023, 8:53 pm)mb134 You'd need to allow for that in fleet planning though, and you're not going to tax/maintain/fuel 2 extra buses just on the off chance the Metro happens to be off for a day.