(07 May 2023, 3:30 pm)Charles41 wrote Took a trip to Tanfield Railway at about 11 from the rally site and spent over an hour looking round. Railway is very nice. Decided to get bus back to rally. Advertised service did not serve the railway so was stuck for nearly two hours waiting to get back to the rally. Got back at half three just as things were packing up.
Once again absolutely diabolical organisation with no oversite by NEBPT volunteers and no signage. I noted a guy with two very young children waiting over two hours at Tanfield for a bus back. Completely unacceptable. Three young lads waited well over an hour at Tanfield before getting on the scheduled service bus to Newcastle.
Interesting vehicles and good stalls at the rally but yet again they seem unable to run a piss up in a brewery.
Charles
This is a real issue, and in fact, potentially a safeguarding issue. If you're shuttling people between one place and two others, then for me it's crucial that not only a timetable is in place, but that the last advertised trips are well publicised.
Having been to many rallies outside of the North East, it's always baffled me why it's so difficult to put a published timetable together. I was over Whitehaven last week and their shuttle service was ran like a military operation.
(08 May 2023, 9:56 am)Busu284 wrote So my thoughts on the rally
I helped out on two of the shuttle. It seemed that the South Shields Daimler, JH59 COM & ENX from the JH fleet only did runs. Gne pi##ed about sending there buses back and forwards which weren't even washed. The stagecoach decker didn't even do the proper shuttle and decided to do scottswood road.
I was on the West Yorkshire bus helping him get to Beamish & back. Not because the nebpt are unorganised. I was helping out with them. The driver did not know his way and I helped. We went to Tanfield & Beamish but got stopped at Beamish as the driver didn't want to head back to Tanfield due to him not wanting to kill it on the hills again. The stagecoach bus was meant to be heading to Beamish but never did cause he "didn't want to" the dceker was full because of that driver. Gne sat and screwed about during the rally. Not 1 single shuttle they did at all. They faffed about running them back and forwards on stupid journeys when they could have helped doing shuttle. The buses weren't even clean which was just pathetic. Then just to make it worse the X50 woman completely went and ruined it by shouting at everyone cause she wanted her own way.
If gne had have helped out on a shuttle service then it would have been fine. But no they sat and faffed about doing absolutely nothing. Constant trips back and forwards. Fgs at one point 5808 was at the rally. Disappeared then they came back with 5801 instead. Whatever the hell gne were thinking yesterday was pathetic. No wonder the nebpt dropped them as support. Jh Coaches were sat doing most of the shuttle work since gne didn't. Like for a company like gne who claim there the best out there. Yesterday was pathetic. 3 buses (a merc with a few stickers about King Charles & a Voltra (which changed twice) a mucky looking Scania and a random OmniDekka) non of which were clean. The rally yesterday would have been better. If gne had have helped out on shuttle. The nebpt aren't organised. They ask who wants to do a shuttle and help park up the buses. Gne didn't even do one shuttle. The shuttle was fine but with Damiler & West Yorkshire & 2 jh buses doing it. Yes the West Yorkshire didn't come back to Tanfield cause he didn't want to which I can understand. But to berate the nebpt for bad organised. It was a good event and the nebpt do a fantastic job at the rallys and think good we actually have a rally season here. But no people sit and berate them for nothing it's pathetic
If you were helping him, did you not point out the hills were there? I'm sure they've been there for centuries and not just installed last week to kill preserved buses off.
From what I could see from the drone footage on Youtube, there were 20 preserved buses there. Half of them running on the shuttle service would have been almost a half-hourly service between the three points, if it was organised. Why don't you question that, when asking yourself why JH ended up running most of the shuttle services?
As for GNE/Arriva/Stagecoach. I'm not sure what the attraction is in them doing shuttle work, when you can ride on their buses any other day of the week to your heart's content. Surely the point of going to an event is to do something that you can't do every other day.