(25 Jul 2016, 7:04 pm)R852 PRG wrote 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.
When I first moved back up here from Staffordshire, Go North East were probably the best company in the UK. Everything was smart, if a bus had a missing vinyl, it would be replaced at the earliest opportunity, all of the branded buses had internal branding, there was a really smart corporate livery, and the management communicated properly with passengers, usual through the medium of Open Line, which I though was a fantastic idea. A lot of things aren't like that now though, which is my main gripe. Because, there is so much potential in the company, and I don't for one moment lay the blame on the directors and management of Go North East, I blame it on the Go Ahead Group. Look at Brighton & Hove, Headlingham and Chambers. They aren't getting the funding they used to, which is a shame.
Again, when I first moved back up here, Arriva were f*cking terrible. But, especially last year, they flourished with Sapphire and MAX. However, I do believe that they have started to stagnate.