The X9/X10 thing seems to be quite tricky, to be honest.

I'm sure there are many trips which are full and standing, hence the apparent duplicates this past Saturday, however I would imagine there are also a fair few which carry pretty low loads.

I haven't used the service myself in over a year now, because I cannot rely on it when I'm having days out on the network. That is largely due to it being hourly, and generally quite busy during the day. The last time I used it the incoming bus was late, so we were all turfed onto the next bus to Gateshead and told to wait there for 15 mins or so until it rocked up - obviously that direction was only given to those waiting in Eldon Square, so good luck to those who were waiting at the High Level. I've generally got little issue using hourly services, indeed I used one to commute to work for upwards of 2 years, however given the notorious tendency for vehicles on the X10 to have 'Wing Mirror' issues then the hourly nature becomes an issue.

An X9 coming back helps with some of that. If an X10 has an issue with one of those pesky mirrors then there's only a half hour wait for the next Angel Streetdeck to turn up. It also means that you're more likely to get a seat, and would help with timekeeping as passenger loadings would be spread. But for a business which is struggling as much as GNE allegedly are (we'll ignore the near £4m in profit in the latest accounts...), I don't see them doubling the PVR on a service without yet more taxpayer funding.

What would be interesting is if another operator from the southern end of the route (which would improve first/last journeys from/to that end) looked into it, and maybe looked into the possibility of returning it to run as a true express à la the TTX-era X10.