(18 Aug 2019, 11:10 pm)streetdeckfan wrote
The Xlines livery, for the most part, is just the 2019 corporate livery with red changed to gold, and the blue changing depending on the route.
The colour of the Sapphire might be the same as corporate, but in terms of actual Arriva branding, there was very little. I'm not disputing that the updated Sapphire livery does now have the large Arriva logo, but when it was first launched, it looks like they tried to distance Sapphire from Arriva as much as possible.
As for the constant changes on the X21, I can't argue with you there!
IMO, Castles Express was one of the best route brands that GNE ever came up with, mostly because it didn't feel as tacky as some of the others.
I personally don't particularly like change to the Xlines brand, even now people in Tindale still don't know what the X21 is, the amount of people I've seen trying to get on with an Arriva ticket thinking the X1 has been rebranded!
With so little mention of Go North East, I can see passengers thinking its a new operator (Xlines), and buses being delayed by lots of questions about which/whose tickets might be valid!!
I'm not sure that the new arrangement of unscheduled connections at Chester-le-Street northbound in an evening (as opposed to scheduled connections in Durham on the same bus) will be popular with passengers.