(05 Jun 2023, 8:55 pm)Storx wrote Aye no arguments, but surely a proper express for them would be the answer rather than going on a magical mystery tour around Saltburn and Redcar, two places they probably don't want to be at either. The X3/X3A in particular is one hell of a magical mystery tour of an express and has little purpose to the West side, it's no wonder it's struggling imo as it just duplicates the X4 or 5 but longer, long distance.

There's absolutely no need for the X3/X3A to go West of Marske, it'd arguably be better bolted onto the end of the 81. There's no lost links bar the 1 small village South of Skelton. Least then it might have more a purpose.

Something like - https://www.google.com/maps/dir/54.52683...?entry=ttu

It does everything the X3/X3A does for East Cleveland and is more useful with the X2/X3 terminating at New Marske / Marske instead.

I've made points previously about the X3/X3A and the route it takes between Redcar and Marske.
It's painful.
Not sure how much time the Dormanstown diversion added to the timetable of either service, but it seems to take a lot longer than it did when bypassing it. 

Neither of those things make the service any more attractive for those using the service other than locally in Redcar.
They've potentially put people off using the service under the guise of saving themselves money or reducing overheads. 

Throw in the 15min clock face timetable that the X3 series and X4 had, versus what they have now (timetabled to run just a few mins apart on common sections in some cases) and you begin to wonder at the logic and decision making.
Then look at how closely the 5 and X3A run together in Brotton...

There's no doubt the X3A provides useful, important links. It will never succeed under it's current guise and I'd be interested to see any knock-on effect with the X3.

Some places are going from 4 buses an hour to 3.
Others are going from 2 to 1.
Not conducive to turning up and going. You've shared your own thoughts on hourly services...