(27 Apr 2014, 2:52 pm)Robert wrote 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.
When I went to Sunderland in the half-term, it appeared to be more Chester-le-Street spares used. I saw 4906, 4908, 4914 and 4929 on the ''Lime'' services, so thats three Chester-le-Street spares, and one Stanley spares. In the past, it has been the same story, with more Chester-le-Street spares being used.