(28 May 2020, 10:24 pm)Drifter60 wrote Some people might remember me used to be on here a few years ago and have resurrected my old account! Been viewing the threads since just before covid-19. Had to come back and post about the service changes which I was surprised by. Hard to tell what’s definitely designed to be ‘temporary’ and what will stay in place all being well. Long post incoming...

X20 going to Langley Park is said to be an attempt to offer cross city connections through Durham; which could be popular but its a long route and while Carville to the Arnison Centre maybe popular, it surely it goes against what X-Lines is all about? Can’t help but think it’s a temporary measure. Without bordering too much in service suggestions but I wonder if curtailing the 20 at Sunderland and having two buses each hour extend to Langley from Durham. As someone else said the 60 could replace the 20 between Sunderland and Shields. It would certainly fit the Drifter brand quite well too.

The 55 being taken out of Hartlepool has somewhat surprised me. Although I don’t think it was a massively well used link and Arriva do have dominance with an every 15 minute service from Peterlee to Hartlepool. The Wingate/Hutton Henry extension makes sense and restores an hourly frequency which was cut back when the first Middlesbrough-Sunderland X7 was introduced iirc. It does seem like the other 55 that stops short at Peterlee could be used for an extension in the future.

The 71 being extended to Seaham, replacing the 238, is something I had as a suggestion sometime ago! Not sure I ever did post it. It seems like the 238 may be gone forever, so this might a change that’ll stay. It certainly opens up nice connections to get to the coast or the cricket ground and a quick change of buses to Dalton Park or Beamish, should that link remain in place longer term. It’s also interesting that they’re running some of the 71s to/from the Spectrum Business Park in Dawdon I wonder if that’s down to some feedback?

I’m surprised to see the 61 back in Murton though, I wonder if this is purely to do with the fact they’re changing frequencies? Murton-Sunderland still every 20 minutes with Sunderland-Hebburn down to half hourly? Or was their reliability concerns pre-covid? This one seems to goes against what they’ve done with the 1B/55/71/X20 changes with merging routes and absorbing smaller routes into bigger ones.

Some of the changes haven’t been explained brilliant, which I assume is become they’ve been rushed out quickly. For example the Crusader changes; it seems to suggest that the 26 is Jarrow to Shields only at all times but it doesn’t mention that on Sundays the 26 does its current full route to Newcastle.

Have to agree about 25 changes too, changing at Wrekenton isn’t exactly ideal it’s hardly a major town centre/bus interchange. Fine if you know the area I suppose, but can certainly see that putting people off. Seems to have caused a few Facebook comments too and removing direct public transport links to the hospital for part of a community during the biggest health crisis in a generation isn’t ideally mind. Not that anyone should be travelling on a bus with Covid-19 symptoms but it’s the irony.

I also think both the X6/X7 should serve Dalton Park again once leisure facilities and shops open, I didn’t understand that at the time. I’m pleased they aren’t interworking with the X20 anymore it seems; seemed a lot of late running buses at the end of last year. I’m starting to think the X6/X7 will be interworking with something else at Sunderland given it’s seemingly been removed from XLINES branding while X20 retains it even with the Langley extension and the fact it specifically mentions using larger single deck buses, X6/X7/55 maybe?

All of the changes are permanent, apart from some of the night/Saturday and Sunday timetables, which are only temporary until the demand etc comes back so i doubt these changes will revert back to normal (such as the 14 and X20 being changed to single services again)


The X6/X7 are temporarily getting larger single deckers for social distancing, theres 3 spare Citaro's from the 26/27 from the 1st June, i think those spare Citaros could be allocated to the X6/X7 for the time-being or maybe 3 GNE branded Citaro's more so to keep the same specs as the solo's, they're likely to get solo's back after everythings back to normal.

X20.. my bet is it'll be allocated the Red Kite streetlights when they become free.