Just seen an interesting post on Service Suggestions by Tyresmoke with regard to the forthcoming introduction of Sapphire on routes 5/5a Middlesbrough-Guisborough-Brotton-Easington. He commented that this was likely to be the most complex Sapphire introduction so far. As a regular 5/5a user I'm naturally pleased we are going over to Sapphire and interested to hear from a driver's point of view how it will operate and what the issues are? Obviously it's a dedicated rota with dedicated drivers, also gone will be the infamous yellow waistcoat (it's all about image). What about the services themselves though? Clearly it's a revenue success as it wouldn't be going Sapphire; seemingly it's at maximum capacity and could only be extended, in terms of additional journeys by the use of more single deck resources. That then brings the question as to why we cannot have a re-introduction of the X5 express journeys, if only between M'bro and say Loftus? I could never understand why we llost them, but then towards their demise they were merely operating as 5 trips. Just a few thoughts guys.