0805 7 Newton Aycliffe - Durham Bus Station (ANE 7536)
As ever, this run was the start of my outing but unfortunately unlike most Saturday's when I get this bus I can often be the only person to sit upstairs on an Enviro 400 but sadly when I went upstairs on this journey it was full of teenage girls blasting Niki Minaj out of their phones and shouting on, after having only fours sleep I couldn't be arsed on with this so I went downstairs at the next stop which got some looks from the passengers downstairs with me taking the seat over the rear wheel arch which was not very comfortable, don't like sitting downstairs on the E400's as the low height roof makes me feel a but claustrophobic, especially on the seat I selected where my head was just below the interior lights. When we got to Ferryhill Market Place some woman and sat on the seat in front of me and she kept turning round and staring at me, especially when I decided to get my charger out to charge my phone so I had 100% battery to hopefully ensure my phone didn't have low battery life towards the end of the day.
0850 15 Durham Bus Station - Consett Bus Station (GNE 6009)
This left from stand D in Durham instead of stand C as someone thought it was a great idea to put two services on stand C at the same time, the other service being the 16A which got to the stand first. Took my place at the front of the bus upstairs where the panel covering the area for the destination equipment was loose so I got glances of the Hanover equipment, also as if this wasn't bad enough this bus doesn't appear to have any form of heating upstairs so it was bone chillingly cold on-board, towards the end of the journey I actually started shivering it was that bad, granted I probably should have worn more than a thick hoddie but this was the only point of the day I actually felt cold. When I got off I went into the shopping centre to warm up, but it wasn't very warm here so I went back to the freezing cold bus station. This is not the first time I've complained about how cold this bus was, I had it a few months back and it was the same story, even when wearing a thick Parka.
0945 689 Consett Bus Station - Hexham Bus Station (GNE 644)
MERCIFULLY!!! this was the exact opposite of 6009, I sat at the back to warm up and thankfully the heat was blasting out through the vents, so the warm air was nicely wafting through my hair! Did get a bit worried when we got to Shotley Bridge as it started snowing! But thankfully it seemed to be just a shower but it did look frosty and there was bits of snow on the ground once we got past Ebchester. Once we got towards Slatley Hall the bus started to make a strange noise, unsure what it was but when a passenger boarded at Slatley Village the driver got out and had a look and then it was fine after that. If you haven't done this route yet, I'd strongly recommend it, some great views on this route. As I needed to quickly change to the 685 when I got off I made sure that I would be the first to get off, this resulted in my mug ending up being a target for the bus paparazzi in the form of Daniel Picken and Davie who will have shot me stood towards the front of the bus. Before boarding the 685 I just had time to snap the Solo SR on the 689.
1041 685 Hexham Bus Station - Carlisle Bus Station (Stagecoach Carlise 27141)
Boarded the bus to be greeted by a rather friendly driver, I then took my place just in front of the rear wheel arch. Just as we leaving Hexham Bus Station I spotted loaned Solo SR YJ65ELW (9104) coming towards us, so I chanced a shot of it through the window, unfortunately when I put the camera back in my bag it had slid itself into the wrong setting so it came out a bit blurry but managed to fix that with a bit of editing, here is the result: https://flic.kr/p/EsJV5e Anyway back to the journey, this bus has high backed fabric seating which I must say was very comfy although I had been sat on buses for 2 and a half hours by the time I had boarded. Annoyingly a large load was waiting at Brampton and some old woman sat next to me who kept wanting to look out of the window, meaning she was invading my personal space. We eventually arrived, late of course being the 685! Annoyingly I just missed a shot of a standard liveried Enviro 400 on Stagecoach Gold service 300, damn! Did get a Lakes liveried ALX400 though. Before departing I let Facebook know where I was by checking into Carlisle.
Carlisle
Took some photos around the city centre, managed to find the thing I wanted which was a demonstrator Wright StreetLite which is on-loan for three months for fuel consumption trials against the Solo SR's used on the city services. Got some more photos and almost managed to get myself run over at some traffic lights. Made my way to the bus station to continue my adventure.
1334 104 Carlisle Bus Station - Penrith Bus Station (Stagecoach Carlisle 37125)
Yes, I decided to venture to Penrith for a few photos. To get there I boarded this Enviro 200 to reach Penrith, again a pretty friendly driver. This route was quite nice, some good scenery although one thing that kept distracting me from the views was a young lad sat on the sideways seat at the front of the bus behind the drivers cab who had just had a rather sad looking face, honestly I was playing a violin in my mind, honestly thought it was going to get me sheading a tear. The sad lad got off just before Penrith Bus Station which is where I departed where I could see a Stagecoach Gold X4/X5 branded Scania/Enviro 400 on the stand which I knew was about to depart any second, fortunately I managed to get a photo in-time although one of the passengers on the 104 wasn't so lucky and missed boarding it. I'll be honest, I thought Penrith Bus Station looked a bit grim and depressing. Fortunately I also got photos of Grand Prix Coaches service 563 which runs between Penrith and Kirkby Stephen, also got the Penrith Town Service 646 operated by NBM using a old Dennis Dart and I got really excited when one of the Stagecoach School Runner Vovlo B10M/Alexander PS' turned up!
1415 104 Penrith Bus Station - Carlisle (Stagecoach Carlisle 37125)
As Penrith doesn't have that much to offer - timed it so I had actually had stuff to photograph, I headed back to Carlisle on the same bus with the driver, disappointingly the run 30 minutes behind was an ALX400 which would have been better for views. On this journey there was an elderly lady talking about sausage rolls I think, or maybe I was just imaging this, I don't know. Pretty steady ride back to Carlisle with me departing near the railway station where I went for some photos. Also got some chips from a nearby chippy, chips were nowt flash but the battered sausage was nice but unfortunately a muscle spasm spelled the end of that as I dropped it on the pavement, so had to chuck it in the bin.
1607 685 Carlisle Bus Station - Newcastle Eldon Square Bus Station (ANE 4662)
Saw two Pulsar's on here earlier in the day and I would have quite liked one just to see how they compare to the Omicity's, also because I prefer the seating layout but sadly 4662 turned up. Annoyingly as I was the last to board, I had limited choice of seats with me taking a seat in the buggy bay, the leather seats especially in the buggy bay are lethal, when we turned left at some traffic lights I nearly ended up on the floor as the bus had to brake sharply as some moron in a van was stopped in a keep clear box meaning the bus nearly drove straight into the moron. Eventually managed to move into the seats behind the drivers cab and then at Brampton I moved to my usual Omnicity seat which is the one towards the back by the emergency exit door and remained there until I departed at Newcastle. Quite enjoyed my journey on this, it provided some good thrash, far better than the examples we've got at Darlington depot.
Newcastle
Towards the end of my journey on the 85 I became sleepy, so I made the decision to get the train to Durham to get home an hour earlier, so I went to Central Station and tried to select my ticket from the machine but as I don't understand trains very well I panicked as I thought I may be doing something wrong, so I tried going to the ticket office but couldn't seem to get in so tried again but still clueless as to what to do, so I ended up heading back to Eldon Square for the bus, feeling disappointed in myself with what happened, still peed off with myself now that it happened, guess for me the train will always be a big and scary concept for me (if anyone has any more advice, send me a message on here or Facebook). Back at Eldon Square I had two options to get to Durham, the 21 and the X12, I opted for the X12 as I thought it would be quieter which I needed after the Central Station mess, unfortunately this turned out to be a mistake...
1922 X12 Newcastle Eldon Square Bus Station - Durham Bus Station (ANE 7609)
...It arrived long before the departure time of 19:10 but for some reason the bus stayed sat just outside the bus station until 19:20 meaning we left Newcastle 12 minutes late, no reason given for this! To make matters worse it ended up running via Blackett Street where of course there was some moron taxi driver stopped practically in the middle of the road where the monument is so this ended up with the X12 mounting the pavement to get past as the taxi with traffic behind him refused to move. Of course it took ages to get onto the A167 to head over the Tyne Bridge. By the time we got to Low Fell we were running 15 minutes late meaning I was at great risk of missing my connecting service 7 home, thankfully it made up a few minutes and managed to arrive just before the 7 was due out. Oh and of course as 7609 was allocated I couldn't get the advertised free WiFi as it doesn't work!
2025 7 Durham Bus Station - Newton Aycliffe (ANE 1516)
After jumping off the X12 I had to join the queue for the 7 which was practically out the door. Was concerned that by 20:20 it hadn't shown and my mobile data signal was weak so I couldn't track it on the Live Map so I had to resort to asking for someone on here to track it for me, fortunately not long after posting that it eventually arrived, because of the size of the queue I was hoping for an Enviro 400 but sadly Pulsar 1516 turned up. Managed to get the seat behind the drivers cab which I don't like so much as I can't see much, especially hate it when heading along the back road into Woodham as I can't see where the hills are. Driver had his foot hard down but despite his efforts by the time we reached my stop he was about 20 minutes down, not helped by someone boarding at Chilton to ask a question to the driver and then got off the bus, pees me off that! My back was in a bit pain once I got to the end of my journey and I was totally shattered.
So I thought this outing was a bit of a disaster and it left me with some mental scars, which is bad. Anyway thanks for reading this train wreck! A few photos have been uploaded to Flickr with more to come at some point.