(19 Feb 2016, 2:24 pm)mb134 wrote I think its time for Arriva to bite the bullet and buy 9 brand new E400's for the X21/22, to go alongside 7522-8. These reliability issues will just get worse as the 57-reg ones get older (if they're this bad at 8 years old, imagine them in a couple of years!), and that isn't great for a 'premium' service is it?!
It's also time for Arriva to buy vehicles suited to the routes they'll be allocated to. Lets not forget that, soon after the E400's were bought for the X31/2/3, 10+ year old Olympians were still appearing at a higher frequency than they should have been, and for a year or two prior to their withdrawal, they made up pretty much the full allocation.
Oh, and for anyone who doesn't think the X21/22 justifies brand new vehicles, I suggest you take a ride on any of the peak time runs, and try to find a seat.
Thought it was a bit silly to put 7 year old buses on a 'premium quality' branded service.
The thing with passenger numbers on the X21/X22 is it probably does very well on the peak time runs but it doesn't seem to carry as much out of peak times based on my experiences of the services, in fact in my experiences of off peak X21/X22's the journeys have often carried less passengers between Newcastle and Ashington than the Sapphire 7 often carries just between Darlington Town Centre and Harrowgate Hill. Mind the same could probably be said for the likes of the X7/X8, X10/X11 and the 308.
The fact that there isn't really anything in the way of appropriate spares for the route doesn't really help matters either, don't know what's worse, a double decker with non of the additional features of the Sapphire buses but has enough seats to carry the passengers or putting the 35 branded StreetLite's on with some of the advertised features but less seats with passengers on the 35/35A getting older lower specification as a result of being allocated elsewhere.
The other issue is where would the Enviro 400's go if they were to take them off the X21/X22? Especially with money being spent on them being refurbished to Sapphire specification.
As much as it is a terrible situation, I think it's just going to continue for a while longer, as I can't see them being taken off the X21/X22 anytime soon. In fact, I think if any service currently in the Sapphire brand within the North East is to receive more new Enviro 400's, it will be the 7.