RE: Go North East - Latest
Well, one of my worries before the Cobalt Clipper double deck upgrade was increased passenger numbers in turn increasing the journey times. That has proven not to happen and infact, with a full lower deck and a half full upper deck, the journey times haven't actually changed. I was on the 1633 Haymarket to Blyth tonght with the load mentioned above and it got to Rake Lane by 17:15. On the other hand, Arriva's 1628 308 from Haymarket to Blyth got there 2 minutes before the 309 at 1713 despite the bus leaving 5 minutes before the 309. Therefore, the 309 took 42 minutes to Jackson's Farm whereas despite the 308 using a supposedly faster route and having a similar load to the 309, it took 45 minutes to Jackson's Farm. GNE are in a perfect position with the 309. I remember it starting out 7 year ago and thinking about where it is now, it's done very well. Not many operators could launch a new route from scratch and particularly a route shadowing a competing service and many years later, end up having it running with a regular service and, with brand new fully equipped double deck vehicles. Hopefully but not quite on the scale of double decks but definitely new or nearly new Mercs or new B8's, the Tynedale Express will end up the same way in years to come.