RE: 2014 GNE Bus Order Predictions
(01 Jan 2014, 10:28 am)CatsFast101 wrote Dan I've never fighter what you've said and I hope you don't take our discussion/disagreements personally as it's certainly not meant to be.
So 4/7 Citaros will move onto WTX. I'm thrilled. 1 will end up on Crusader/Diamond/Blaydon Racers?? And the 2 '06 reg could be put into GNE livery??
Happy new year too.
I really don't. In all honesty, I love it really, you help boost the posts which provokes further discussion from everyone!
Just a tad irritating when people don't read into the likes of Rob's posts, and often suggest the complete opposite of what he has told us. The answers have been out there for the past week or two for what was established last night, but it required people to look into the posts properly (and perhaps all at once, if people were that fussed in working it out). He mustn't like repeating himself, haha.
I certainly believe that's the plan, yes. I think everyone knows just how badly the Renowns currently allocated are coping which is evident by the amount of breakdowns we've seen and indeed the amount of times a "Northern" branded vehicle has appeared on "Wear Tees Xpress" service X7. A heavy-weight vehicle was needed to ensure that performance was still good, and the newer Mercedes vehicle is most definitely more reliable than a Solar, or indeed the Volvo B7RLE which was suggested a few days back. I suggested quite a number of weeks ago that Go North East needed to 'act sooner, rather than later' and it seems they have. If Go North East had waited any longer, it could have had an impact on both the client-base of the X7 service, but it could have also had an impact on the "Tyne Tees Xpress" services as both brands are linked together.
If you can remember, the same happened with the "Tyne Tees Xpress" too - it was invested in owing to passenger numbers slowly falling (most likely due to the ongoing unreliability of the services at the time of B7TL allocation), and worked well as passenger numbers are at their best now.
In regards to the one which could be repainted in accordance with changes...
PB0003954/296 - GO NORTH EAST LIMITED, 117 QUEEN STREET, GATESHEAD, NE8 2UA
Variation Accepted: Operating between Winlation Bus Station and Gateshead Interchange given service number 49/49B/49C effective from 02-Feb-2014. To amend Route and Timetable.
I've noticed that the "Blaydon Racers" network can often suffer with terrible reliability. Reliability is an important factor of operating a bus service as I'm sure you'll agree, and if the costs can stack up (which I'm sure they can), perhaps an additional vehicle could be added to the PVR so layover could be increased and reliability was bumped up..?
I'm not too sure where the two final Citaros (presumably the eldest - '06 regs) will end up, but Blaydon Racers, Diamond, Crusader and Silver Arrows could all benefit from a spare vehicle, be it branded or red liveried. If one was to be based at Riverside and repainted into Go North East's corporate livery, it would allow the vehicle to be shared between the Crusader and Blaydon Racers. That said, if the vehicles were repainted gold and allocated to the "Laser" network, two Solars could be released from Deptford to presumably replace Olympians (providing all current contracts do not require every single Olympian in the fleet at present, which is highly unlikely). Rob hasn't really hinted at these two vehicles, which may suggest that the decision has not yet been finalised.
I believe these vehicles are in line to receive a free repaint from Mercedes as has been discussed previously (as is the norm for a vehicle's first repaint from Mercedes), so the decision will need to be finalised pretty quickly - I hope, soon after, we will have confirmation on these two repaints too.
Happy New Year, and here's to another year of guessing the future fleet position with the aid of hints!