Given all the alleged failures of management, do we know what the new management structure will be at GNE?

Have East Yorkshire been separated yet, or are they still under GNE for now, and how will it work with Nigel being over both GNE and GNW?

Few photos on Facebook confirming a new advert booklet of a load of pubs round Newcastle & Gateshead. 

These mostly include the ones on the Q3 which is mentioned as QuayCity Voltra Q3 on 8 of the pubs

Microbus and others are on there. I'll send the screenshot of them below 

There is a registration on Companies House for a Go North East Buses with Transdev having significant control. Does anyone have any further information on this?

Nexus have revealed the timetables for the services during Metro Flow Closure.

It states that the replacement bus services will carry pink signage on the sides of the vehicles (no doubt using the advert frames) to show it's working on the Metro Replacement.

Frequency for the services are....

X900 (Heworth - Jarrow - South Shields) - Journey Time: 36 Minutes Heworth to South Shields, 32 Minutes South Shields to Heworth.
Every Day - Every 24 minutes - PVR 3

900 (Heworth - All Stops - South Shields) - Journey Time: 53 Minutes Heworth to South Shields, 45 Minutes South Shields to Heworth.
Mon - Fri Peak - Every 6 Minutes - PVR 18
Mon - Fri Off-Peak - Every 12 Minutes - PVR 9
Mon - Fri Evening - Every 15 Minutes - PVR 6
Saturday Daytime - Every 12 Minutes - PVR 9
Saturday Evening - Every 15 Minutes - PVR 6
Sunday All Day - Every 15 Minutes - PVR 6

So at peak hours Mon to Fri, if all Enviro 400s are reliable, 21 of the 23 shall be in service during peak hours Mon to Fri.

Very surprised to see that based on the maps on the Nexus site, Stagecoach won't be running their 553 this year, leaving the Newcastle to Shields work entirely to GNE with the R1 (what could possibly go wrong...) 
https://www.nexus.org.uk/greatnorthrun

Good to see ticket acceptance in place across all operators and modes of transport, less good to see only very vague info about what buses are running when, with only a couple of weeks to go.
https://www.stagecoachbus.com/promos-and...-north-run

So on the back of Arriva Northumbria's new order, I do have a question.

How come 6338-40 sound slightly different to 6341-55? 6338-40 have that more "hummm" like the Classic ZF E400s where as 6341-55 have a more B5TL/B9TL like rhythm.

Do the gearboxes in 6341-55 have a different profile setup? I know there was complaints about the retarders in 6338-40 during the first lockdown when they operated the special 45 and X30/X71.

I am sure we'll congratulate Go North East being nominated for best large operator of the year by Route One magazine, and no Roger French on the nominations panel either!

On a serious note, I can think of at least 10 operators off the top of my head that should be above three of the four nominations. 

https://www.route-one.net/awards/routeon...announced/

I was in Gateshead and I saw the X12 it had the 15 branded bus on, and on the right side it had something called the "Twilight Fare" £1 after 7pm, on the route 15 does anyone know if the Twilight Fare is on any other service.

If you were a bus driver wasnt it free travel for your family, it is now 75p a week. Starting wage seems to have gone up. 

Fancy a new job? Drive into a greener future with us.
No previous bus driving experience required – full training provided
£10.50 starting wage (£21,300 a year)
Opportunities for overtime, with some drivers earning up to £35,000 a year
All pay rates reviewed annually[/font]
Free bus travel and only 75p a week for your family

Historically, I'd always ranked the local big three as 1. GNE, 2. Stagecoach, 3. Arriva. I'd always loved GNE's forward looking approach to vehicles, marketing, networks and ticketing. I'd harboured a grudging respect for Stagecoach's corporatism and Day Rider, and I'd never seen anything I like about Arriva, dreading any journey that included them.

Latterly, I've been surprised how my thoughts have changed....

I have recently had to use Arriva a lot, on many different services, and have found their punctuality excellent, vehicles fair to good, the app surprisingly useful (once you get used to it), and the routes, timings, fares and ticketing options quite reasonable given their operating constraints. All you can really criticise them for is the haphazard use of branding, but that seems to be a problem affecting all operators three days, assuming the reason is the recent ructions. I am not too sure, but they also seem to be the least reluctant to start hacking off bits of their network to save a penny, but perhaps others know different.

GNE has gone way down in my eyes, having seemingly forgotten all the things that made them good, but not so much that they have a better way of doing things now, the resulting hybrid of a bit of the same and yet some changing ways being a sad and almost delusional look, as seems to have been observed here. Their network seems to be crumbling, their marketing, in practice and conception, seeming to be as bad if not worse than Arriva of the present day. And they can't really blame Covid either, since the decline began way before that, and yet they're in possession of the same advantages/drawbacks as Arriva and Stagey, and arguably have a stronger local position from which to leverage efficiencies and new opportunities.

Stageoach's decline is the most depressing to me. A stable network isn't worth much if the routes, timings and connection opportunities aren't as good as they could be. They can't blame urban congestion for all of their increasingly poor time keeping, with notably Arriva seeming to be able to do more with less, but they seem to think the punters are mug enough to believe it. The new corporate livery and growth strategy is frankly absurd, the worst of a world where the three companies seem determined to be the worst at this very basic aspect of running buses (in essence, livery and offer). The DayRider just seems to be less of a good deal and more of a con trick these days. The buses have steadily gone from a well turned out relatively modern fleet, to the embarrassment of the region. The loss of WiFi seems to personify everything that the current Stagecoach offer represents (i.e. we know you don't have any better options, so F You).

What a world to live in, where Arriva is the best local offering. And to be clear, Arriva's offering is poor enough in my eyes for the haphazard use of branding alone, to seriously contemplate the horror of a publicly managed just about good enough not really run for the customer in the ways of counts (treating their needs as priority one, two and three) but at least subsidised by car drivers Manchester style monopoly.

Depressing.