Route Development | Network Expansion & New Services

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29 Dec 2021, 8:54 pm #22

(29 Dec 2021, 5:50 pm)Dan The original point of discussion was regarding Go North East 'exploiting other changes to travel pattern demands etc and potentially capitalising', and your comment was that 'don't think the powers that be at GNE towers think that such things exist beyond a couple of once a day services to Whitby or Belsay.'

You added that you 'can't think of the last regular service they introduced' but all those services in my original post have been introduced. To the users of these services, they're new services.

To the people in Brandon, Meadowfield and Langley Moor, they have a new bus route which takes them directly to New College Durham and the Arnison Centre. Yes, that bus route may have existed in the late 80s in another format, but it hasn't for a very long time (I assume you're not referring to the most recent incarnation of the X46 which was basically the bus running in service between Crook and Durham rather than out of service). In some respects it's disappointing that you don't view them as such, but I'm glad you see them as positives.

The 21 is a prime example of a service being extended and diverted to offer a vast number of new connections to places previously not served - exactly what you have alluded that operators should be doing. It's comparable in some respects to your suggestion of the Stagecoach 'E' services being extended beyond Sunderland City Centre to the Royal Hospital, but the difference between that and the 21 is that Brandon - Durham was not a corridor served by Go North East previously, so isn't duplicating something that the company already offers in the 'hub and spoke' model. It will be interesting how Go North East, Arriva and Durham County Council view this corridor from April 2022, and whether they view the more established service as being the route to stick with, see the benefits of the new route and the cross-city connections it offers, or would prefer a blend of both.

And the rest of the population who see that they're not new services, but simply a shuffling around of resources in a vain attempt to scrabble around and make a few quid?

You are right in what you say about the 21 being extended and/or diverted. But for those who had the 21a or 21b and lost their direct link to the places GNE insist on taking them - not much of a consolation for them. Particularly when the punters who had the 21a, now seeing a slow, morbid decline in their offering and now having an hourly 71 as way of a runners up prize.

Without wanting to split hairs, the X46 Crook - Newcastle (might have had other numbers at various points - 721 plus others?), was around for donkeys years. Think it ended in the mid-90s as a through route with United having the final say on what was the X46 at the end.

I've said some positive things about the 21 extensions. But I think more could and should be done.
West of the Arnison towards Lanchester and beyond, is prime for connection or a diversion of an X5 or X15.
But, all that duplication you talk about will need sorting around the Arnison Centre, either between there and Durham or between there and Chester...
If an E1 can't duplicate a 16 for a couple of miles along Chester Road, then I dread to think what they will think about a 21, X21, X22 and 50 running between Chester and Durham, with the X20 joining the mix at The Red Lion.
That's all before throwing a 62 and 63 in to the mix.

'Illegitimis non carborundum'

Andreos1