(25 Jul 2016, 5:58 pm)Adrian wrote I don't feel that this comes down to reputations or whatnot. I just think some of the posts and comments made around companies are comical, deluded and completely unfounded. That's all corners I'm referring to, not just yourself.
I tend to get people send me screenshots or copies of social media posts quite often, which if I'm honest, I couldn't care less about. Some of them, however, I do find quite amusing. I was sent one of a post about GNE's use of the ex-Brighton & Hove OmniDekkas on the Airshow Shuttles, despite still being in the B&H livery. By the content of the post, you'd think someone at GNE had taken a sledgehammer to them and then torched them, prior to them being used at the weekend. I doubt the same comments were made when Stagecoach sent the E400s out last year. It's this level of delusion and blinkeredness that I find comical, but in essence, it's quite sad really.
Once upon a time, if something was clearly crap, it'd be said that it was crap and why. You'd have a bit of debate around it, and that would be that. Now maybe I'm just getting less patient in my old age, but I constantly see the same crack banded round and round, almost like a continuous loop. Have the debate, and move on. It'd be a boring world if we all agreed with each other, but it'd equally be a boring world if we all became broken records.
Two examples -
1) Go North East's 'corporate' repaints are piss poor quality. You'd have to be blind to see otherwise. Lets have a debate around quality of paint and the quality perception to customers?
2) Arriva running around with buses that haven't been painted since new, is equally as piss poor. Again, you'd have to be blind to see otherwise. Lets have the same debate?
What I'm saying is that I wish enthusiasts would actually engage and debate issues, rather than making cheap off the cuff remarks for a few likes, spitting their dummy out when someone disagrees, and not being able to back their opinion up.
Discuss.
Completely agree with most of these points.
I'd love for things to be how they were twelve/thirteen years ago, when the interest was first sparked, with everything running around in one livery and almost all of the vehicles were enjoyable to ride on, but time has moved on since then. I feel like some enthusiasts are just sardonic about Go North East, generally for very petty reasons, because there seems to be some sort of appeal to mindlessly slating a company, with just one incident being enough to get the ball rolling for these people. In many cases, this is just something as simple as a Nexus Solo SR appearing on the Citylink or Quaylink. Meanwhile people are dying with hunger on the other side of the world. Priorities and such.
In summary, I think the people who seemingly despise Go North East and get great pleasure out of pointing out as many problems as they can find (yet Arriva and Stagecoach seem to be immune to this) need to stop copying the opinions of others, hiding behind snide remarks and then having a hissy fit as soon as somebody challenges them. It's just a shame that some of this boring and monotonous conversation always seems to have the support of the others in these circles.