(08 Jan 2014, 8:37 pm)busman101 wrote Will take that tenner off you ! Mind you, the evening journeys are still stone dead - not sure why the Fencehouses Massive moan about the lack of evening buses as the one's that are there don't seem to trouble the scorer.
Honestly?
It can't be paying its way between Houghton and Fencehouses during the day, cos of the other services that dominate and looking at it, its numbers seemed to drop on the route once it was curtailed (and buzzfare boundaries were changed) at Chester, in the other direction.
On an evening/night, I know people who have just given up on buses beyond 18.00 in the area and use taxi's/drive - when in the past, they used a bus.
On a personal level, if I ever end up through Fencehouses and I am not driving, it's always a taxi there and back once the runs start being reduced for the night - even from Durham and Newcastle railway stations, because of the chew on in getting to the bus stations, paying a fortune, changing and hanging about for upto an hour for a bus (which you need to pay extra for cos its a Compass run on a night).
Stopped using the tpx to Chester for that reason too - would hang around in York/Newcastle (depending on where I had been, just to get off at Chester and get the bus through to Fencehouses).
I aint the only one either.
Feeding the hubs in Chester and Houghton is all well and good - but not everyone lives in a town centre and not everyone likes waiting ages for a bus home.
So they look for an alternative.