(10 Jul 2022, 10:21 pm)streetdeckfan wrote A plusbus ticket wouldn't be valid though, would it?
I thought you couldn't get them if you're travelling within the region. I know they're different cities, in different counties, but they're pretty close together.
Actually, looking it up they are separate areas so it would work, but it seems you would have to buy two separate tickets, one for Durham and one for Newcastle
Also, having had the misfortune many, many times of having to travel between Newcastle and Durham at peak times, I'd say there is definitely a need for more buses. It's not uncommon for 2-3 X21s, and the 21s inbetween to be absolutely packed by the time they get to Gateshead.
Yeah they're valid at both sides as others have said. Quite cheap aswell believe the Newcastle one is only £4.15 or something.
The thing is where are the people getting on, are they getting on at the Durham end of the route or are they getting at the Low Fell end of the route (which there's probably arguments for more in the future). Like someone else said the 21 is dead after Birtley. I'm not sure they even need to be every 10 minutes to CLS tbh especially now the depot is closing.
Had a little look into it last night and supposedly the 18:xx TPE train used to be standing load when it was the 3 car Class 185's which was dead after Durham with a lot of people using CLS aswell. There's 200k people use that a year which isn't bad considering it was an hourly service (now 2 hourly during the day) which works out at about 14 people per train ignoring Sundays, holidays etc. Always thought it was a bit of a dead station tbh. Just a shame it's so infrequent, hopefully one day the Stillington Middlesbrough service could come about there's a free path now which could give it a proper service it deserves tbh.
(11 Jul 2022, 8:26 am)big mac wrote I've just noticed on the new 21 timetable that they've added earlier morning journeys from Durham, with the first one of the day leaving Durham towards Newcastle at 4.22am. I don't understand why this isn't even mentioned in the summary of the changes, as this would actually count as a positive change. I thought anything that would be considered positive, they'd be wanting to shout from the rooftops about.
Depends if it's better or not, they already existed in theory under the N21 instead though.