(12 Nov 2023, 1:04 pm)Jimmi wrote 6 only really required double deckers because of interworking patterns with scholars, which is no longer required, 865 is now tagged onto the 8/8A at Darlington depot which requires a double decker to be allocated to one board.

I would like to see some investment into the the 1/5 & 7 at Darlington, those short Lites and Pulsars 1514-16 having 4 seats less than their counterparts can show at times, can't say I was thrilled at having to sit in the buggy bay of 1603 for 40 minutes on the 5 home the other evening. Could do with some more deckers at Darlington to cover the required decker boards and also allow more to be allocated to the 7 again as some runs at peak times really do struggle, not unheard of nowadays for people to be left behind in Durham around 16:00 as single deckers can't take the loads.

Think the only run at Durham that requires double deckers (minus the 7) is the X46 and even this is mainly at peak times, naturally to ensure this is met, there needs to be some spares which end up on all sorts of other routes, sometimes dependent on delays or just whatever's avaliable.

X93/X94 really needs something doing with it, the amount of single deckers on it this year was an embarrassment and makes the idea of using it again off putting. The changes of routes at Redcar recently does allow more flexibility into the allocation of double deckers between Redcar/Whitby, so would be nice if more could be left to linger around on the 62 when not required on the X93/X94. Have heard rumours that 7609/10 may not be going on the Whitby Park & Ride next year but unsure how true that is, if at all.

Honestly agree with all that.

For the X93/X94, I think it's a route they need to be more creative with. Personally, I'd be looking at routes that have a christmas rush and see if they work them with that, the 64 at Durham is the route I'm going to pick here.

So you'd do something like 12 DD's and 5 SD's and the Summer months you have all the deckers allocated at Whitby doing the P&R, X93/X94, and the SD's at Durham when it's less quite due to the college being shut etc but then in the winter month flip the allocation. So most the deckers are at Durham and a mixed allocation of SD's and DD's are at Whitby. There's no need for a full allocation of Decker's in the winter and it would give them a chance for some recovery rather than being rat arsed on the X93 for 12 months of the year.

There might be other routes, you could look at other than the 64 which are similar. So you'd end up with something like

Summer:

Whitby: 10 DD + 0 SD
Durham: 2 DD + 5 SD

Winter:

Whitby: 4 DD + 5 SD
Durham: 8 DD + 0 SD

DD's and X4 SD's out over the season for heavy maintenance to get them up to spec for the next summer so we don't have a repeat of this time round. If there's further issues at Whitby then you take the 2 DD's from Durham and there's no repeat of the farce this year. Any spare deckers at Redcar are on the 62.