https://www.gonortheast.co.uk/share-your...ce-changes

Idk what to say but

Really 

There's absolutely nothing here to mention bar the fact they want to withdraw the 644

(18 May 2026, 10:28 am)Nerd4321 wrote https://www.gonortheast.co.uk/share-your...ce-changes

Idk what to say but

Really 

There's absolutely nothing here to mention bar the fact they want to withdraw the 644

Doesn't the 691 exist as the X81? It did a couple of years ago, for sure.

(18 May 2026, 10:28 am)Nerd4321 wrote https://www.gonortheast.co.uk/share-your...ce-changes

(18 May 2026, 10:59 am)MurdnunoC wrote Doesn't the 691 exist as the X81? It did a couple of years ago, for sure.

Wonder if there's some further changes planned or if there's some errors in that timetable as currently there seems to be a bit of a gap before the 1900 departure out of Alston, on weekdays I think the bus ends the day in Haltwhistle.

Yes it was the X81 before, was withdrawn on July 24th 2022 as the description on a Flickr photo I uploaded a few weeks prior shows when I rode the Iveco Daily Ilesbus i-City MAX demonstrator:

Seems the morning times are different too, as it didn't get to Alston until just before 0900 after looking at the EXIF of the photo I took of the Mercedes Benz Sprinter City demo GNE had used on hte X81/681 circuit in 2017.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/gjm-photog...4897620482

(18 May 2026, 10:28 am)Nerd4321 wrote https://www.gonortheast.co.uk/share-your...ce-changes

Idk what to say but

Really 

There's absolutely nothing here to mention bar the fact they want to withdraw the 644

Agreed, 

While this new day and age where GNE consult on changes before they go ahead with them is admirable, personally I think it only really needs to apply for more substantive changes or significant reductions. I guess mentioning potential improvements is useful too (the X1 to Haswell Plough may not have happened cause ultimately nobody cared), although I think people are more likely to respond and say don't do something than they are to write-in and say yes go ahead.

Having said all that, asking people about retiming journeys by a couple minutes is a bit of an overkill - in the grand scheme of things its not going to have that significant of a change on people's lives.

(18 May 2026, 10:34 pm)peter wrote Agreed, 

While this new day and age where GNE consult on changes before they go ahead with them is admirable, personally I think it only really needs to apply for more substantive changes or significant reductions. I guess mentioning potential improvements is useful too (the X1 to Haswell Plough may not have happened cause ultimately nobody cared), although I think people are more likely to respond and say don't do something than they are to write-in and say yes go ahead.

Having said all that, asking people about retiming journeys by a couple minutes is a bit of an overkill - in the grand scheme of things its not going to have that significant of a change on people's lives.

GNE consulting on ‘proposed’ changes is not a meeting, in the 00s and early 10s they regularly had consultations out for potential service and even allocation changes, they seemed to disappear once major service changes became a quarterly event for the company.

(19 May 2026, 9:29 am)pbjd wrote GNE consulting on ‘proposed’ changes is not a meeting, in the 00s and early 10s they regularly had consultations out for potential service and even allocation changes, they seemed to disappear once major service changes became a quarterly event for the company.

Tbf those things used to be a complete con.

Just a tick box exercise but written in a way that they'll always be accepted.

ie. asking whether it should serve a hospital on a route for people in Ashington (who don't use the bus) by cutting the core of the route down to hourly sort of stuff. Then when the hourly part moans they can go, 'well people agreed, so stfu'.

The old, not serve somewhere to make it more reliable was quite common aswell. Yeah of course everyone outside the small hamlet your cutting out is going to agree... It caused a lot of the crap network we've got nowadays imo.

(19 May 2026, 12:06 pm)Storx wrote Tbf those things used to be a complete con.

Just a tick box exercise but written in a way that they'll always be accepted.

ie. asking whether it should serve a hospital on a route for people in Ashington (who don't use the bus) by cutting the core of the route down to hourly sort of stuff. Then when the hourly part moans they can go, 'well people agreed, so stfu'.

The old, not serve somewhere to make it more reliable was quite common aswell. Yeah of course everyone outside the small hamlet your cutting out is going to agree... It caused a lot of the crap network we've got nowadays imo.

You know what springs to mind when you say this?, Arriva's great axing of 2010, i moved away, granted only for 6 months, when i left the network was as i remembered it for years before that, 343, 355, M55 etc, i came back and it was X this, X that, 355 to Whitley Bay had gone, M55 was now the 55