(20 Aug 2013, 6:06 pm)big mac wrote Wouldn't mind a direct link from Metrocentre to Low Fell being restored. I know GNE will argue that it's pretty easy to get the 21/24 to Gateshead and then X66 (and makes more money for them!), but the direct link existed for years on the 183 and then the 77, and I know some people who made a point of waiting for that bus rather than do the change at Gateshead, even though it was once hourly.
I/we were the same when I lived in Birtley or with friends when I moved from the place.
We would walk half a mile to get a 183, rather than quarter of a mile to get a 26 and change at Gateshead.
Mind I'm sure part of it was so we could sit upstairs at the front as it went down Whitehall Road, in mock panic incase the brakes failed and then moan as it went into the little stop at the flats at Teams.
It was the same coming back too. We would hang about outside the old pictures, just to get that back.
I know one set of Grandparents who lived on Barley Mow were the same if they went. The 26 stopped at the back of the house and ran twice an hour as well as the 721 & 727, the 183 stopped at the front, but it was always the 183 there and the 183 back.