(23 Mar 2026, 3:34 pm)S830OFT wrote First day of the 599 and only one bus operating this afternoon. Apparently they have had a "breakdown". Guess it sounds better than a "puncture" which is a bit old now.

They did get both of the new buses onto the route this morning it seems, so presume the 82 would have been allocated whatever was spare.

Also the 42 and 71 both seem to have gone missing at various parts of this morning. Wonder why?

Could see this happening, but not first day

(23 Mar 2026, 3:34 pm)S830OFT wrote Also the 42 and 71 both seem to have gone missing at various parts of this morning. Wonder why?

This seems to be an almost daily occurrence at this point, 42 & 71 having journeys which don't operate, often taking a bus from one to allocate to the other, another is the Durham 40/40A/41 being cut from two buses to one, leading to the one bus having to do a hybrid of both routes [40/40A] so trips are doing something like Cathedral - Waterside - Rail Station - Cathedral.

Only one bus on the 71 at the moment one of the 19 seater Mercs with 4 rear facing seats! Whilst the other bus that was on has been taken off at Seaham after only 1 run to go onto the 168, again...

GCT might aswell just hand the contract back as they are just not fulfilling their contractual obligation to provide a service.

One month with only one bus on the Cathedral bus too, I feel sorry for the poor drivers who will no doubt be getting all the questions, not helped by the fact the 42 also tends to go missing at 11am for the rest of the day so the bus can go onto the 71.

They could be a really great company, but sadly they are not doing things correctly at the moment.

Absolutely shambolic  company, should never have been given the 599 contract, Northstar were fine. The Saturday running of 319 service shows how poor and unreliable they are especially with the lack of the ferry crossing.

The 19 has stopped tracking as well, largely anyway, there was a couple of trips tracked this morning then stopped. I hope this changes again as this service experiences a lot of delays at peak times, but with GCT you never know if its coming or not. Especially as they have upped their PVR again.

(24 Mar 2026, 3:21 pm)Baywatcher wrote Absolutely shambolic  company, should never have been given the 599 contract, Northstar were fine. The Saturday running of 319 service shows how poor and unreliable they are especially with the lack of the ferry crossing.

To be fair, they've not been given much time to mobilise, as discussed in the March tenders thread

(24 Mar 2026, 6:08 pm)Kimlfixit wrote To be fair, they've not been given much time to mobilise, as discussed in the March tenders thread

Ummmmm ...... shouldn't they have planned for that BEFORE bidding for or accepting the contract .....?

Day three this week & it's happened again.

The bus from the 71 (WX75OBP) has been taken off the route at Seaham after it's first full trip to go onto the 168.

Explain to the customers on the next trip wanting to go to Chester-le-Street & the trip after to go back to Seaham why their bus has not operated for three consecutive days, just so the bus can go run another route.

Obviously it seems DCC seem to be more lenient recently towards their contracted services not operating in full, especially given one of their routes has not operated with two vehicles for over a month now (40/40A) - a route which is used by mostly elderly & disabled people to get up to the Train Station and Cathedral.

Guys, are you reporting these issues anywhere, or just on here?

If you haven’t already, email:
buses@northeast-ca.gov.uk

Never mind guys... have a read of the FOI contract obligations and if you think there is a breech email it in with evidence

Just remember they are paid using Government money

Anyone able to comment on the 19/19A

The 19, 82 & 599 are all tracking on bus times now.

Just watched a 19 depart North Shields Hub with 204A Durham displayed, bet that driver will end up getting some funny looks

(14 May 2026, 3:34 pm)V514DFT wrote Just watched a 19 depart North Shields Hub  with 204A Durham displayed, bet that driver will end up getting some funny looks

I think there’s one* with a mind of its own because it’s displaying all sorts of random stuff when it’s on the 62.

*either bus or driver - never looked too closely

Is it just me or is the 558 Dene Estate-Heworth Interchange bus route always late ! for example I get on at North Guards , Chicks Lane and there the route is late by a minimum of 20 minutes , never have I seen this bus on time !

And the old TB933 from Winlaton-Team Valley , I was basically the only passenger on it untill one day somebody took the service back to Winlaton , every time I took it , it was late by a minumum of 15 minutes.The TB933 is now the J&H coaches service 933.

Don't forget about the temporary S1 from South Shields to Little Haven Hotel , zero passengers , and late by a minumum of around 12 minutes , it never worked for me !

(Yesterday, 6:42 pm)HarryHarry wrote Is it just me or is the 558 Dene Estate-Heworth Interchange bus route always late ! for example I get on at North Guards , Chicks Lane and there the route is late by a minimum of 20 minutes , never have I seen this bus on time !

And the old TB933 from Winlaton-Team Valley , I was basically the only passenger on it untill one day somebody took the service back to Winlaton , every time I took it , it was late by a minumum of 15 minutes.The TB933 is now the J&H coaches service 933.

Don't forget about the temporary S1 from South Shields to Little Haven Hotel , zero passengers , and late by a minumum of around 12 minutes , it never worked for me !

Youngest fleet in the North East with an energetic engineering team to boot though.

(Yesterday, 7:07 pm)MurdnunoC wrote Youngest fleet in the North East with an energetic engineering team to boot though.

Unfortunately that was my little cousin.I post on his account because I forgot the password to mine.

Sorry about the inconvieniance everbody I am not born in 1999 but 1990.
1999 is my cousins account , he no longer uses it so its mine now.

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558 13:34 route was quite messy towards the back cause a load of teenagers got of at the stop I was getting on (one of the stops on the A184).

Todays 168 from Peat Carr Estate at 10:24 was a couple minutes late , was told bad traffic near Hetton Interchange.Does anybody else know anything about this ?

It was just a few minutes late, it's not the end of the world. Tonnes of buses were late around Newcastle today, especially those going through Byker. It happens everyday, we don't need a post about every late run. If you not happy about a bus running to time, complain to the operator, they not going to take a blind bit of notice of it being posted on here.

Ffs, another one that's gonna moan about everything, i swear this Forum is being taken over by kids

(4 hours ago)HarryHarry wrote Todays 168 from Peat Carr Estate at 10:24 was a couple minutes late , was told bad traffic near Hetton Interchange.Does anybody else know anything about this ?

Cool story bro