(03 Mar 2013, 1:40 pm)dans_bus_photos wrote 4944 is now at Chester le Street, its not known yet whether its a permenant move or not

Cheers! I forgot I saw this vehicle yesterday, seen turning into Eldon Square on the 28.

I agree online consultations can get out of hand. Consultations need to be worded very carefully or people just get the wrong end of the stick and rumour mill goes into overdrive. It seems to be the case that when services are proposed to be withdrawn, word spreads around very quickly, and people become oblivious to the positives that can come from revised/new services.

When GNE were doing their Boldon consultation for changes in July 2011, it was proposed to extend the 26 from Heworth to Gateshead and Newcastle, or have the service to Newcastle running through East Boldon instead. This implied that if the East Boldon route was chosen instead of through Castletown, then the route through Castletown would be lost, but this was never to be the case. It still ended up kicking up a raucous though with local residents in Castletown who were fearing the worst -

http://www.sunderlandecho.com/community/..._1_3296943

About the public libraries, I believe Sunderland City Library on Fawcett Street stocks some bus timetable leaflets on one of the upper floors by the escalators, but it's been years since I've been there. The Post Office would also be a good bet too.

It's ironic that we're moving away from online consultations to more conventional leaflet-based consultations. I never really liked the idea of someone filling out an online form for services they never use and putting strong disagree to everything just for kicks. For someone who genuinely uses a route but doesn't actually live on the route, they should be able to pick up a leaflet on the bus or request one from Customer Services.

I do like the idea of having Go North East representatives talking to passengers on buses to clear up any concerns or answer questions. But when you consider how many buses are running per hour, the chances of covering even a small percent of journeys are very slim, hence why a lot of bus users complain they've never seen anyone on their buses. I think the better option would be to station someone at key boarding points like at bus stations/interchanges. You can see in this photo a representative handing out new timetable leaflets for changes in July 2011 which saw the withdrawal of the Black Cats services. I'm sure something similar could be done with consultations too.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/bazza90/5966832063/ (Bazza Houston)