I have only recently noticed the different thicknesses of the coloured lines on the front panels between the 53/54 vehicles and Q3 vehicles (green /yellow)
Never noticed before

Ok a starter for this thread having come across this on Youtube? I'm sure many who live in GNE territory had the pleasure of riding on one of these.........

https://youtu.be/H5XGF941PFI

Can anyone tell me why the 555/556 got withdrawn? And roughly when and who operated it?

Does anyone know if GNE will be operating any of Arriva's services on Boxing Day this year?

So as I mentioned on the disruptions thread, if Arriva pulled the plug on the 47/51/52/53/54/55 and sent them out to tender, it would level the driver numbers at Blyth & Ashington almost immediately and get things back to normal. 

Obviously the margins on these services are probably marginal and likely even more so since the pandemic. Minibuses could be the next step but with that is the cost & logistics of the clean air zone not forgetting other logistics.

Working it out, if all routes out of Blyth & Ashington except the 1/2/57/57A are all decker operated (if there was enough), that would phase out most single deckers and minibuses.

Then for the 1 & 2 and 57 & 57A, the total PVR is 12 meaning that the 14x StreetLites would then cover them services with 2x spare and phasing out all minibuses.

Seems like GNE have won an award for...

The Buses for Pleasure sponsored by @CBWtweets SILVER WINNER is....
Toon Tour, Seasider X11 and the X75, @gonortheast

The Marketing sponsored by Coach & Bus 23 ( @DiversifiedUK ) GOLD WINNER Jobs with Real Purpose,@gonortheast CONGRATULATIONS

The Bus and the Community sponsored by @yourHeathrow SILVER WINNER @gonortheast CONGRATULATIONS! 

The Culture Change SILVER WINNER@gonortheast CONGRATULATIONS!  #BusWinners22 #MadeIt #UKBA

Other companies, Preston Bus, Stagecoach Preston, Diamond Bus NW, Abellio London, TransDev, Arriva London, Stagecoach Areas, Uno. 

All won awards, from what I saw on Twitter ArrivaNE nor SCNE won any awards

I'm not sure what's more reliable, GNE's service or this website.

Seems to be down more than it's up these past few days!

Customers are advised of upcoming changes to some fares within County Durham, Tyne & Wear and Northumberland areas, with effect from Sunday 20th November.

Our previous fare increase in the Northumberland, Tyne & Wear and County Durham areas was in January 2022 and was a conservative increase, much lower than the growing CPI rate at the time, with the expectation that Arriva could minimise the level of cost increase passing on to our customers. Regretfully, since then, costs such as fuel and utilities have continued to increase and as a result the difficult decision has been taken to undertake this additional fare revision.

Adult and Child single fares will increase between 10p and 70p, along with return tickets increasing between 20p and 80p. Most existing zonal products will also see an increase, of which some of these were previously frozen in price back in January, details are shown in the table below.

Young Persons/Student Saver zonal tickets will not change, neither will any fares or zonal products within Tees Valley and North Yorkshire.



https://www.arrivabus.co.uk/latest-news/...I33pY1EmnQ

Appears that (via LinkedIn), Go North East have taken on two ex-Arriva managers into roles called 'Business Improvement Managers'.

Clearly shows the business is struggling, given the requirement for roles like this, but more to the point, is Nigel Feetham pulling in faces he wants/trusts over existing people in the business? Hopefully not.

I'm travelling on 24120 this morning on the 71 service, it sounds a good solid reliable vehicle but I have noticed some subtle differences compared to standard E300s,

 namely the seats are a lot taller similar to the ones that were on the Scania omnilinks, and there is an extra emergency exit in the roof about 3/4 of the way back. Plus the first two sets of saloon lights are blue coloured which is a feature I have noticed on a lot of Scottish buses and the other ex Carlisle E300s.

Does anybody know why these vehicles are different to native North east examples?