(16 Dec 2015, 9:31 am)Jimmi wrote Those Volvo B9TL's probably will not last another 4/5 years on the TTX, look what happened with the Volvo B7TL's, when they had reached the age of 7/6 years old, they were frequently breaking down so I doubt Go North East wouldn't want to push the B9's to around 8 years on them routes, I imagine that in the next financial year new buses will be bought, most likely StreetDeck's.
I do worry what state StreetLite's and StreetDeck's will end up in after a fair few years in services.
But if the facility was there to use 6049 as well as 6084 (by allocating 6050 on the TEN in place when needed, then the B9s could go off the road for more servicing, maintenance etc.
I think that the Streetlites will probably be OK depending on how the setup works with the Cummins lump. They'll probably rattle to death though.
On the otherhand, I honestly don't know about the long term durability of the Streetdeck. Worst case, if after a year or 2 the Streetdecks fail to perform as anticipated on the X21, then GNE could if the road infrastructure has been sorted by 2018 (Silverlink, A191 between Cobalt and Holystone) swap 7x Streetdecks for 7x B9s from Percy Main (GKN mods shouldn't be an issue bar a potential penalty charge from the grant providers) and use B9s instead.
The 309 / 310 (X39) would then be a split allocation and not interwork bar a few morning 310s to Newcastle running as B9s before working the early morning 309s to Cobalt/Blyth, resulting in the 309 using 10x B9s and the 310 (X39) using 7x Streetdecks. Sundays could either be a split allocation or 9x B9s get used only leaving 1x spare on a Sunday.