(08 Mar 2018, 6:20 pm)Andreos1 wrote 8321 looking forlorn at Woodstone Village a few moments ago.
Passengers transferred to another branded vehicle. Unsure if it was the 17.45 (approx) that failed and a replacement was sent or the 17.15 (approx) that's waited half an hour for the next scheduled bus to appear.

In deep (?!) thought about the Merc's at the moment. Keep your eyes peeled for another thought provoking post!
Two in a week? First questioning the logic of running off the 20A early from Shields and now a potential post about the Merc's!

GNE's Mercedes Citaro's.

I like them. In the age of the soulless characterless, plastic lightweight bus - they seem to hold the last vestiges of quality.

They also hold an accolade of appearing boosting numbers to such an extent on the X1, Coast Road and Tyne Valley services, that brand new deckers needed to be purchased a few years later.
However, their allocation from new to Deptford based routes, didn't see the same success.
It got me thinking about the pricing structure and competition along the Coast Road and through the Tyne Valley and comparing/contrasting to that on the routes initially operated by Mercs from by Deptford and Washington.

The three succesful corridors which have seen further upgrades to deckers are totally different to the likes of the 2 series and 35 series.
All three succesful corridors (apart from operating direct and not around the doors like the 2 and 35 series), also operate in to and out of Newcastle.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing, but given the chance to do it again and see sustained growth on three corridors, would GNE have allocated the 27 Mercs from new? Could the 1 have benefited? Would the Bensham Bank/Whickham Highway services be operated by deckers now?
If they were so successful on the three corridors mentioned, why did GNE hold back with future purchases and restrict any other purchases to the 4 a few years after the three original batches?

Or, was it down the fact that deckers operated for a significant period along the Coast Road, along the Tyne Valley and from the Coalfields to Newcastle via Washington and the demand was always there?

Appreciate we won't see them on an open forum like this, but to compare and contrast further, I would love to see how numbers have improved/declined once cascades started and Merc's appeared on the various other Riverside, Deptford and then Stanley services.
To see cheaper, lighweight vehicles appear on the Stanley and Deptford routes would indicate to me that the 'Merc factor' has worn off. 
However, I think that would be too easy an assumption to make. Particularly in the fuel saving, BSOG obsessed, penny pinching era we are living in now.