The rail service from Hexham to Newcastle has increased in frequency since GNE started the X85 (from 2 trains per hour to 3 trains per hour) and the rolling stock has improved from the class 142s - so the train is bound to have hit passenger numbers on the X85 (as well as X84 and 685)>

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First time I've heard the late Peter Huntley called a failure !
Peter brought route branding in, vehicle refurbishment, reinvigorated printed timetables and, like MG, was high profile.

Peter H and MG have both spent a very large amount of money on fleet upgrades and vehicle presentation - but GNE continued pre pandemic to be the least profitable of the 3 large North East operators.

I think the late Mr Huntley certainly had good intentions and actually turned the business around to some extent.

My main criticisms of his decisions would be:

- Ultra high spec vehicles - would something like a Volvo B7RLE with Civic V3's or Coach Seating not sufficed over Mercs & Omnicities?

- Pricing & ticketing complicated and expensive - To give credit to Martijn, he's actually trying to turn that around.

The rail service from Hexham to Newcastle has increased in frequency since GNE started the X85 (from 2 trains per hour to 3 trains per hour) and the rolling stock has improved from the class 142s - so the train is bound to have hit passenger numbers on the X85 (as well as X84 and 685) 

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First time I've heard the late Peter Huntley called a failure !
Peter brought route branding in, vehicle refurbishment, reinvigorated printed timetables and, like MG, was high profile.

Peter H and MG have both spent a very large amount of money on fleet upgrades and vehicle presentation - but GNE continued pre pandemic to be the least profitable of the 3 large North East operators.

So is the X85 evidence that a Stenning copy & paste livery, tables and some WiFi isn't the solution operators thought it was?
If punters are choosing a 35 year old train (that misses town centres along its entire Tyne Valley route) over a brand new bus, then there's obviously issues somewhere that those features mentioned above can't (and won't) fix.

So is the X85 evidence that a Stenning copy & paste livery, tables and some WiFi isn't the solution operators thought it was?
If punters are choosing a 35 year old train (that misses town centres along its entire Tyne Valley route) over a brand new bus, then there's obviously issues somewhere that those features mentioned above can't (and won't) fix.

You seem to be forgetting that the X85 has also seen a huge marketing drive (digital and print both targeted), faster journey times offered (more direct route via A69 than pre-Covid), and much later evening journeys introduced as well as Sunday. This is in addition to the investment into brand new buses with all the bells and whistles.

Aside from fundamentally changing the purpose of this route, what more do you think they could have done? I am really interested to hear.


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You seem to be forgetting that the X85 has also seen a huge marketing drive (digital and print both targeted), faster journey times offered (more direct route via A69 than pre-Covid), and much later evening journeys introduced as well as Sunday. This is in addition to the investment into brand new buses with all the bells and whistles.

Aside from fundamentally changing the purpose of this route, what more do you think they could have done? I am really interested to hear.


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That's right it has. And did any of those strategies work? Has the advertising resulted in a service which has grown and developed to something which is sustainable and profitable? 

Or are we in a position where the operator sees it as disposable with the ROI lower than forecasted in its business case?

Regardless of me proposing X, Y and Z, the people who make these commercial decisions and being paid to see it succeed - have lost out to a 35 year old train. 
They've failed to capture the market and are seeing people travel to out of town railway stations before commuting to their places of work or leisure (presumably places the X85 doesn't go to).

I'm all for commercial operators taking commercial risk. However when the same old doesn't work, it makes sense to try something else.

That's right it has. And did any of those strategies work? Has the advertising resulted in a service which has grown and developed to something which is sustainable and profitable? 

Or are we in a position where the operator sees it as disposable with the ROI lower than forecasted in its business case?

Regardless of me proposing X, Y and Z, the people who make these commercial decisions and being paid to see it succeed - have lost out to a 35 year old train. 
They've failed to capture the market and are seeing people travel to out of town railway stations before commuting to their places of work or leisure (presumably places the X85 doesn't go to).

Don’t dodge the question, Andreos!

You have been very vocal in your opinions recently regarding the X9/X10 and X84/X85. You are very clear in your view about the strategies employed by GNE’s commercial team not working. What would you do differently in these cases, to save these hugely loss-making routes (which have been for almost two years)?


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To be fair, rerouting the X85 to go direct along the A69 has more likely killed the service more than help it, as it only really serves Hexham Bus Station and Corbridge petrol station before galloping along to Denton Burn. They should at least kept it serving Horsley and Heddon on the Wall, and if they wanted to attract people in Hexham, it would have been better off extending the service to loop around Priestlands and Causey Hill. Because if people need to be given a lift to somewhere, they probably be given a lift to the train station as it's easier to drive there and drop people off compared to dropping people off at Hexham Bus Station, plus easier for cars to wait to pick people up too.

Don’t dodge the question, Andreos!

You have been very vocal in your opinions recently regarding the X9/X10 and X84/X85. You are very clear in your view about the strategies employed by GNE’s commercial team not working. What would you do differently in these cases, to save these hugely loss-making routes (which have been for almost two years)?


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Pulling me up for dodging a question (look closely, you might see my response), whilst not answering questions yourself #theirony #hashtagsonNEB

Pulling me up for dodging a question (look closely, you might see my response), whilst not answering questions yourself #theirony #hashtagsonNEB

Hehe!! You’re making me chuckle this evening, Andreos! I’ll consider that your Christmas present to the community.


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That's right it has. And did any of those strategies work? Has the advertising resulted in a service which has grown and developed to something which is sustainable and profitable? 

Or are we in a position where the operator sees it as disposable with the ROI lower than forecasted in its business case?

Regardless of me proposing X, Y and Z, the people who make these commercial decisions and being paid to see it succeed - have lost out to a 35 year old train. 
They've failed to capture the market and are seeing people travel to out of town railway stations before commuting to their places of work or leisure (presumably places the X85 doesn't go to).

I'm all for commercial operators taking commercial risk. However when the same old doesn't work, it makes sense to try something else.

Surely the bus should compliment the train rather than compete against it...

It's one of the biggest reason why public transport sucks in the UK whereas in European countries the bus would take you to the local train station to get in a more modern train to Newcastle with the bus times linking with the train and so on. 

It's one of the reasons why transport works in London as it links up whereas the rest of the UK it doesn't.

Train will always beat bus regardless because the bus takes longer and does the exact same route as the car.

To be fair, rerouting the X85 to go direct along the A69 has more likely killed the service more than help it, as it only really serves Hexham Bus Station and Corbridge petrol station before galloping along to Denton Burn. They should at least kept it serving Horsley and Heddon on the Wall, and if they wanted to attract people in Hexham, it would have been better off extending the service to loop around Priestlands and Causey Hill. Because if people need to be given a lift to somewhere, they probably be given a lift to the train station as it's easier to drive there and drop people off compared to dropping people off at Hexham Bus Station, plus easier for cars to wait to pick people up too.

So many good points here. Limiting it's operation to those making end to end trips is certainly a risky move.

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Hehe!! You’re making me chuckle this evening, Andreos! I’ll consider that your Christmas present to the community.


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Enjoying your lemonade? Don't get too full of sugar. You will never sleep tonight and you have the big man coming tonight too.

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Surely the bus should compliment the train rather than compete against it... 

It's one of the biggest reason why public transport sucks in the UK whereas in European countries the bus would take you to the local train station to get in a more modern train to Newcastle with the bus times linking with the train and so on. 

It's one of the reasons why transport works in London as it links up whereas the rest of the UK it doesn't.

Train will always beat bus regardless because the bus takes longer and does the exact same route as the car.

Yup, I'd say so too. 
Integrated transport, buses connecting to trains and vice versa - feeding in to each other to make public transport a viable option beyond PlusBus schemes.
Transdev can do it on their Leeds/Bradford airport services, Stagecoach can do it across Scotland. But for some reason, it doesn't seem to be the case locally.
It always reminds me of this episode of Thomas the Tank Engine. https://ttte.fandom.com/wiki/Thomas_and_Bertie

The rail service from Hexham to Newcastle has increased in frequency since GNE started the X85 (from 2 trains per hour to 3 trains per hour) and the rolling stock has improved from the class 142s - so the train is bound to have hit passenger numbers on the X85 (as well as X84 and 685)>

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First time I've heard the late Peter Huntley called a failure !
Peter brought route branding in, vehicle refurbishment, reinvigorated printed timetables and, like MG, was high profile.

Peter H and MG have both spent a very large amount of money on fleet upgrades and vehicle presentation - but GNE continued pre pandemic to be the least profitable of the 3 large North East operators.

Huntley sort of was…so much money for so little growth. Like for like and nonsense like Omnicities on the 21. The Huntley area of branding was diluted but branding for branding sakes and some really weak brands didn’t help. He ran a brand in economic prosperity but it was more of the same.

re-the train…it should complement not compete, it should go where trains cannot. 

I don’t think printed timetables matter (sorry enthusiasts and Roger French) and high profile is equally irrelevant. 

Does least profitable not tell you something? There’s no change,,,,its the same routes since the 80s but shinier buses.

Storx is correct, and this I believe is seen at its best in Switzerland.

The main railway station in a City is well served by Bus Routes, Tram Lines and in some places linked in with a Metro System (Lausanne) or a Funicular / Cable Car (Neuchatel was one location but it wasn't working when I went).

At key locations buses are normally timed to arrive about 5 or 10 minutes before the train, and will depart 5 minutes after the train leaves, in some cases if the train is late (which I found very rare in my week there), the less frequent services that are co-ordinated with the trains are held for the train to arrive so passengers can make their transfer. Even trains are held for other trains depending on the route. Even changing between various modes of transport was pretty straight forward, even at one point I had to use a rail replacement service.

One location to the South of Basel called Dornach (https://www.flickr.com/photos/gjm-photog...1665179926) you could change between bus, train and tram and there is no ticket barriers and you can remain sheltered from the rain / snow. (The tram line is behind where I was standing, it has a balloon loop to turn the trams around (single ended operation here) and the tram platform is adjoining the train platform, this is a view from the tram showing the bus leaving the bus station section of the interchange. (https://www.flickr.com/photos/gjm-photog...1665180471). Here's a view of the tram platform for good measure - https://www.flickr.com/photos/gjm-photog...1688901316

Honestly, if you want to see Public Transport done well, go to Switzerland.

So is the X85 evidence that a Stenning copy & paste livery, tables and some WiFi isn't the solution operators thought it was?
If punters are choosing a 35 year old train (that misses town centres along its entire Tyne Valley route) over a brand new bus, then there's obviously issues somewhere that those features mentioned above can't (and won't) fix.

I don't think that there is any doubt that "a Stenning copy & paste livery, tables and some WiFi" doesn't work everywhere.

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I think the late Mr Huntley certainly had good intentions and actually turned the business around to some extent.

My main criticisms of his decisions would be:

- Ultra high spec vehicles - would something like a Volvo B7RLE with Civic V3's or Coach Seating not sufficed over Mercs & Omnicities?

- Pricing & ticketing complicated and expensive - To give credit to Martijn, he's actually trying to turn that around.

The big question is "can Go North East afford to offer the bargain fares it currently is doing"? or are some of them just ludicrously cheap. Fares that were nearly £5 now only £1.70. How long will these offers be extended?
£1.70 flat fare in Gateshead is too cheap - Nottingham City for example have a flat fare of £2.40.

I don't think that there is any doubt that "a Stenning copy & paste livery, tables and some WiFi" doesn't work everywhere.

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The big question is "can Go North East afford to offer the bargain fares it currently is doing"? or are some of them just ludicrously cheap. Fares that were nearly £5 now only £1.70. How long will these offers be extended?
£1.70 flat fare in Gateshead is too cheap - Nottingham City for example have a flat fare of £2.40.

But honestly how many people know about these fares.

£1 after 7pm the amount of buses I have been on where people don't know that is a bit of a joke. No one knows about the cheaper fares.

I don't think that there is any doubt that "a Stenning copy & paste livery, tables and some WiFi" doesn't work everywhere. 

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The big question is "can Go North East afford to offer the bargain fares it currently is doing"? or are some of them just ludicrously cheap. Fares that were nearly £5 now only £1.70. How long will these offers be extended?
£1.70 flat fare in Gateshead is too cheap - Nottingham City for example have a flat fare of £2.40.

Maybe the penny has started dropping elsewhere and others are starting to realise that's the case. 

They're not the magic wand some people insist they are and never have been.

But honestly how many people know about these fares.

£1 after 7pm the amount of buses I have been on where people don't know that is a bit of a joke. No one knows about the cheaper fares.

Not just regular users but the fact as I mentioned that someone in Rowlands Gill did not only know he could travel for £1, but could get home after 11.35pm at night (which covers most cases unless you really want a full on night out).

As dated as it sounds, why no leaflet drops etc? People who don't often use the bus or others for that matter, won't go out looking for the information. GNE need to reach out to them and make a massive song & dance.

Something simple like.........

You drink, we'll drive you home for only £1.

Your last X45 home is at 11.35pm*

*Mondays to Fridays & Saturdays only

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Forget surge pricing, we're surging prices DOWN!

With £1 flat fares and the last X45 from Newcastle at 11.35pm, there has never been a BETTER THAN EVER time to get on board with Go North East!

Speaking of the X45/X46, if extra running / recovery time is added, will that see an increase of the PVR to 10x (2hr 30m round trip) or will the X45/X46 PVR drop to 7x and see a 20 minute combined frequency (2hr 20m round trip)?

The former option would be the most cost effective given that a PVR of 10x would push the driving hours to the limit not to mention the cost of an additional vehicle in the PVR.

The latter option would just give that little extra time needed and keep driving hours sensible (4hr 40m off peak for 2x round trips). Not only that but would also free up an additional StreetDeck as either a spare at Consett or maybe Washington.

The big question is "can Go North East afford to offer the bargain fares it currently is doing"? or are some of them just ludicrously cheap. Fares that were nearly £5 now only £1.70. How long will these offers be extended?
£1.70 flat fare in Gateshead is too cheap - Nottingham City for example have a flat fare of £2.40.

I'd say a bigger question is "can they afford not to offer the bargain fares they are currently doing"

We know that a product is only worth what someone is willing to pay for it in any walk of life, and we from the latest and lauded Transport Focus survey that only 60% of fare-paying customers find the product on offer represents value for money (the lowest since the survey began).

There wasn't a 2020 report and I don't think we'll see a 2021 report either, but it'll be interesting to see if the next results reflect the work that has been done around fares, offers, discounts and what not. 

Some of the £1.70 fares are extremely cheap I agree, e.g. Newcastle to Blyth for £1.70 on the 309 is an absolute bargain whichever way you look at it, but others (e.g. Chester Road to Sunderland) I'd say are good value for money. If a couple can go for a night out in Sunderland at a combined £3.40 each way, then that's good enough to take two taxi journeys off the road.

Of course the numbers are important here, so it's a shame that this isn't being ran at the same time of having a representative number of customers travelling.

Don’t dodge the question, Andreos!

You have been very vocal in your opinions recently regarding the X9/X10 and X84/X85. You are very clear in your view about the strategies employed by GNE’s commercial team not working. What would you do differently in these cases, to save these hugely loss-making routes (which have been for almost two years)?


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Anyways, the X84 & X85 can get canny tight in some area. Its best to use older buses and not risk larger posher ones like the 400MMC's to be damaged. sure they will perform better on the X10!
Cant wait to see how the 400MMC's will look in its Purple X-Lines Attire

Anyways, the X84 & X85 can get canny tight in some area. Its best to use older buses and not risk larger posher ones like the 400MMC's to be damaged. sure they will perform better on the X10!
Cant wait to see how the 400MMC's will look in its Purple X-Lines Attire

Hasn't there been more damage to one X10 since the coaches, then X84/X85....

Jan 30th, E400 comes into Service on the X9/X10 
https://twitter.com/Dan3942/status/14750...49345?s=20 

Wonder if the e400s will get the X10 plates

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Wonder if the e400s will get the X10 plates

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Hopefully.

Hopefully.

Hopefully not - Waste of money if they do.
Cutting services and then spending money on registration plate transfers do not make good business sense.

Hopefully not - Waste of money if they do.
Cutting services and then spending money on registration plate transfers do not make good business sense.

Well, they have a bunch of custom plates. Tbh I never thought of it that way. And I agree.

Hopefully not - Waste of money if they do.
Cutting services and then spending money on registration plate transfers do not make good business sense.

I certainly wouldn't bother for buses that are only a year old as it hides the age and makes them appear older (*cough* MetroCentre X66)

The 'Cherished' plates are worthless on the market, if the four are to be fitted then it has to be GO02MBR, GO02NCL, and two from XL10NCL/LNE/XLS

 XL10NCL/LNE/XLS

could do XL10GNE

My guesses for January service changes, they'll likely be a long shot but could be right in parts maybe? The obvious ones are the X9/X10 and X84/X75

X45/X46
- Reduced to every 20 mins combined to improve reliability and assist with driver numbers.

47/47A
- Extra bus in PVR to improve reliability although wouldn't increase driver requirement by much as it would just be a long layover at Consett.

X30/X31
- Both standalone (Mon-Sat daytime) from X70/X71/X72 with maybe potential future move to CLS saying Consett have also gained the 78.

X70/X71/X72
- All standalone (Mon-Sat daytime) from X30/X31.

X21
- PM & evening journeys re-timed and 1700 journey from NCL to BA re-timed to run later providing a more convenient service for commuters.

My guesses for January service changes, they'll likely be a long shot but could be right in parts maybe? The obvious ones are the X9/X10 and X84/X75

X45/X46
- Reduced to every 20 mins combined to improve reliability and assist with driver numbers.

47/47A
- Extra bus in PVR to improve reliability although wouldn't increase driver requirement by much as it would just be a long layover at Consett.

X30/X31
- Both standalone (Mon-Sat daytime) from X70/X71/X72 with maybe potential future move to CLS saying Consett have also gained the 78.

X70/X71/X72
- All standalone (Mon-Sat daytime) from X30/X31.

X21
- PM & evening journeys re-timed and 1700 journey from NCL to BA re-timed to run later providing a more convenient service for commuters.

I hope there is some service time changes for the 62/X6. Aswell hopefully every 20 min Angel service using the Ex 21, now PVR Spare a 6332-6333 with 1ph terminating at Durham. 

X45/X46, they are normally 20 mins late, when I have been off them. reducing the frequency by 5 mins isn't going to do a thing except make them more late.