26 Jul 2019, 11:22 pm
#51
(26 Jul 2019, 10:18 pm)streetdeckfan At risk of 'Arriva bashing' again, I feel like the Sapphire brand is a joke at this point. What is supposed to 'make my journey sparkle'? Because as far as I can tell, all they've done is stick a few stickers up that say 'Sapphire'. It's the same old buses that they run on any other route. And what is the difference between a MAX and Sapphire service other than the name? Not to be a GNE evangelist, but as I said previously, their 'standard' spec is equal to or higher than Arriva's Sapphire, even on the X21/X22. As much as I see people complain about them, I think the tables were a great idea, I'm always using them to work on the bus, plus it gives me a seat with legroom! I'm not surprised GNE dropped Coundon, I only ever saw a couple people stay on the 18. And if I'm being totally honest, I'm very surprised they actually extended the X21 to Tindale, people I speak to at the stop let the X21 go by and get the 6 as they say the X21 takes too long because of the route it takes through Woodhouse
When Sapphire was launched it seemed to be more of a big deal as Arriva North East hadn't really had any buses with WiFi, e-leather seats or charging ports of any form prior to the introduction of Sapphire on service 7 back in late 2013 (only X66 coaches and Durham Park & Rides had WiFi pre Sapphire IIRC), over time more routes went Sapphire and then MAX came along with Sapphire still being the 'premium' offering for a while but later the MAX spec basically became the same minus the next stop announcements although Darlington MAX buses gained NSAs due to council requests or something. Now Sapphire and standard is more or less the same spec apart from being a different colour inside and out and no NSAs although Temsas haven't gained WiFi or USBs in their recent refurbs. I would say at this stage Sapphire, MAX & Frequenta is just a brand in the same sense as 'Angel' or 'Castles Express' is to GNE to some extents although personally I feel it is somewhat better to have a pretty standard spec for all routes and brands like GNE are doing.
(26 Jul 2019, 10:53 pm)V514DFT Werent metroriders in production from 1993-1997
According to Wikipedia, Metrorider's were in production from 1989 until 2000
