(23 Jun 2014, 8:48 am)AdamY wrote I don't know whether service X97 started before April 1995, but there was no such service in May 1994. It could, of course, have been introduced in the interim period but it means that the service between Seaburn and Newcastle lasted a matter of months before it was radically altered.
It certainly didn't go to Seaburn in 1995 as this map, dated October 1995, shows service X97 operating between Silksworth and Newcastle.
It did only last a metter of weeks. Possibly the same lenght of time that the catch a bus service 15 from south shields to newcastle lasted. It was registered one day and withdrawn the next but it had to operate for the minimum period of 56 days or whatever it was back then. The seaburn x97 was very similar just a few weeks of operateion