In my opinion the runs that are being withdrawn only carry a very few passengers or non at all, so it makes better sense to withdraw than run a bus for 1-3 passengers.
Arriva wont put an earlier journey on the X2 simply since they've dropped the day/weekly prices the travelling public at peak times has not increased, i caught the X2 got to gateshead about 8.50 and including me there was only 4 passengers on, suffers the same problems as gne OK1 in darlo & boro no connecting services and 10 returns on 21/X21 to 2 on X2.
RE: Go North East