(03 Aug 2024, 7:41 pm)PH - BQA wrote I notice on social media that Go North East employees were out on one of the two open-toppers yesterday to 'say goodbye' to a member of staff (https://x.com/liamhall24/status/1819465986736902162). This obviously meant that the other board was operated by a standard B9, so yet again GNE 'management' prioritising themselves over the people who pay their salaries - the public.
Thinking back to the Great Strike of 2023, I seem to recall one of the "arguments" peddled by some on here was that the GNE drivers weren't as "productive" (did we ever get a good explanation for that?) as their Stagecoach counterparts. I wonder, as Stagecoach take yet more work from GNE in the form of the Great Park services, if the same argument can be applied to their respective commercial teams? I struggle to imagine you can have a productive afternoon swanning around on an open-topper.
That's one of the two branded examples not the two actually in normal use, so 6993 was presumably VOR rather than taken out of service for this. Having said that, 6995 did actually appear in service at one point last week, so seems they can do it when they choose to.