(03 Apr 2020, 9:04 am)Andreos1 wrote Possibly an East Lancs thing. 
Trying to think what the Vykings were like and I'm struggling. Maybe the centre door on them helped!
Don't think I ever got a go on one of the Pyoneers.

I've never been on the Vikings but have used the Lowlanders at Blyth and can't really remember any leaks on them tbh. Infact they used to feel quite solid with barely any rattles at all. Shame they we're ruined by the Urban 90's which have to be the worst seats ever made.

(03 Apr 2020, 12:35 pm)6049 wrote If they had such deep pockets don't you think staff would have been pushing for a higher wage rise last year? 

Not to mention that the figures have been estimated earlier in this thread of how much the weekly cost is for 100 drivers per depot. With a company that has nearly 3000 staff across GNE and EY, the figure to "pay their way" will be astronomical. 

It's far easier for the London operators to collect their fares and have higher footfall simply because it's all operated under the TfL banner. With the Oyster card you can get on any service no matter which company is operating it. Up here, you have competition - the Coast Road is an obvious example. GNE competing with Arriva on a busy route - someone buying an Arriva weekly ticket can't use it on GNE. You have to have a Network One ticket up here for multi operator.

(03 Apr 2020, 4:48 pm)6049 wrote Erm yes. That's what the union is there for, and company performance is assessed to see what is a reasonable demand 

I said virtually the same thing regarding the way London operators are paid - that it isn't based on fares taken because London is by and large tap and go. Routes in the North East are also created for the public benefit, but are only operated if commercially viable - if they aren't, then the local authority or Nexus will decide whether it is an essential service which needs to be kept running even if it is running at a loss.

So your saying the fares in the North East are good value for money? £4.40 for singles to do 6 miles. Cheaper to use a taxi if there's more than 3 of you etc. Not really. I'm not saying that comparing to London fares is fair either which are way too cheap and are over subsidised but NE tickets in general in places are too expensive.

On the Coast Road that's GNE's choice so you can't use that as a reason. GNE could bin off the 309 tomorrow and it wouldn't really affect anyone bar the small minority of people going from Blyth - Foxhunters to Cobalt the rest of the route is covered by the 308 or 335.

Routes in the North East are created for the COMPANIES benefit not the public benefit and you've already said in your own words why. If they we're designed for the public's benefit then it work in the sense that Route A makes £500, Route B makes a loss of £200. That's a profit of £300 so that's all fine because some of those customers might use Route A at times aswell. Instead you get the issue of oh Route B doesn't exist, well I'm driving and not using Route A neither as I can't get to X. It shouldn't work in a sense that you take the profit then dump it on the tax payer to pay for the non commercial routes. These are the exact reasons why they shouldn't be getting bailed out.

Either way though it's irrelevant anyway as the government has annouced a package to fund any losses on any routes ran for the next 3 months aslong as a set percentage of their network is running which is probably the fairest outcome.

Also for the record, in terms of pay if the big boss didn't decide to pay himself £1.7 million a year and you split that between all of said GNE/EY drivers then they'd earn another £557 a year - just saying.