(27 Apr 2014, 2:31 pm)Marcus wrote I'd say at least one unbranded vehicle on the Lime every couple of days, and it's normally one of Stanley's. Also worth mentioning, Stanley put more non-Lime branded vehicles on like Diamonds and Red Kites. I occasionally see Whey Aye Five 0 OmniCities on the Chester runs, but I haven't seen any other branded vehicles on it in a long time. Before the Versas arrived on the Worm a load of DAFs would get used in the event of a single decker spare being unavailable. I rarely get Northern spares on it, and after the 21 I use it practically daily.
Its the complete opposite for me. Most of the time it is Chester-Le-Street spares that I see rather than Stanley spares. A Red Kite and a Diamond bus covering for a Lime is far better than a Venture SR like we have seen in the past but these buses have probably been placed on because of lack of spare single decker stock out on the road which will usually be covering for the missing branded bus on the Lime.
It may be rare but it is becoming more common as if you monitor the buses on the service for a good period of time you will notice that with 1 spare been allocated a day (at least) that will soon add up to show the services poor reliability. Bit like the X7 when it had its renowns. They started off great but over time you could tell that the buses were struggling to cope with the amount of spares that appeared on the route over the period of time before the Citaros were brought in.