(02 Oct 2022, 7:23 pm)Storx wrote There's only 9 Streetlite's though at Durham... The rest of the singles are proper Enviro 200's not the MAN junk or Pulsars which are far superior than anything ADL and Arriva Durham is the worst fleet out the lot aswell. The only really old buses at Durham are the Solo's and 8 or so B7's which are decent buses anyway, the send me down Enviro 400's are only a couple year newer at Sunderland and are worse vehicles.

Stagecoach's fleet is poor across the North East they just seem to avoid criticism on here for some reason, they're only company which still has Darts in service even Arriva has got shot of them after having nearly, if not, a 100 of the things. They have numerous 58 plate and older Enviro's on flagship routes like the 1, there's still ALX 400's in frontline service which are being shifted around to avoid the LEZ, credit to Arriva for buying new buses instead of doing that.

I actually don't think it's unfair they bring it up personally. The MAN Enviro 200's really are junk and there's 17 of the things there and they're doing everything not to replace them or getting more junk from other areas instead.

to be fair i don't think SNE avoid criticism I know myself and others bring it up quite a lot.

however, let's not forget that the darts were nearly all cascaded I think there was only 2 left at one point and the only reason the numbers are expanding is because corporate head office don't seem to want to invest in new vehicle's for here.

look at the massive expansion in London that the new owners have instigated, they seem to be using a mike Ashley business model of using a successful business (NUFC as SNE) as a cash card for investing elsewhere. and only paying a small token fee which in this case is offloading other divisions cast offs. i think if that the 3 main profit-making divisions of London, Manchester and northeast were allocated 25 percent of yearly investment on new vehicles with the other 25 percent going on an ad hoc basis to other divisions we wouldn't be in the current situation. also not forgetting COVID probably decimated most divisions profit for around 14 months