(11 Jan 2015, 6:29 pm)Jimmi wrote The Middlesbrough bound OK1's left Darlington and Middlesbrough 5 minutes in front of the X66 but it wasn't a success.

There is a fair amount of fare paying custom on the X1 now, or at least there has been when I've been on it.

Like you say Arriva has many connections in Darlington which didn't help the OK1 as it had none in Darlington.

The fact that the X1 is to be upgraded shortly would suggest it has become a solid commercial operation, and the addition of Tow Law from service 1/1B has allowed those customers to have a faster journey time into Darlington. The lack of connections at both ends (more noticeably in Darlington/Middlesbrough) wouldn't have helped the OK1 - and I imagine there will have been very little end to end traffic, beyond perhaps concessionary passes.

There's no denying that GNE have built the local 18 service into a solid little operation, and the X21 to Newcastle obviously has become popular along its route, especially offering quicker journey times between Durham & Newcastle than competing services from both operators. It is a shame that they don't see fit to invest in this service, beyond the recent addition of extra peak journeys. It will be interesting to see what effect the extra features offered on both service 6 (Bishop-Durham) and X2 (Durham-Chester-Newcastle) in the near future has on the loadings on the X21 though.