RE: Jan 2025 - GNE Engineering Shortage
I had the serious misfortune of having to use Go North East services today. Had I not already committed to going in to meet a colleague some time ago, I'd have turned around and abandoned the commute this morning.
It was that bad.
TLDR; I'd rather stick pins in my eyes than willingly commute on buses.
Morning
I arrived at the Galleries bus station about 07.45 via a short 84 from home. It arrived and dropped me at the Galleries promptly, so far so good. That's where that trip to fantasy land ended.
The Galleries bus station itself appears to be in some state of disrepair, and seems to get worse every time I use it nowadays. Stand D doors appear to be out of order, along with stand B and C. A queue for the 4/X1 stand northbound had formed, and was along most of the outside of Stand D - or at least so I thought. When I got outside myself, I could see it was actually spanning out onto the island bit that they use for layover, with another queue forming inside (those who hadn't read the notice about the doors being broken)
In the close to 40 minutes I was stood in the queue, I had overheard people who had been stood for close to 90 minutes, and that there had been several 4s and X1s missing, with those that did run going out full to capacity. I could see from the app myself that there were big gaps, along with two X1 decker casualties and a Citaro parked up.
A 4 to Heworth eventually pulled in and took around 25-30 passengers, but the queue had grown further since that point.
There was a brief moment of hope, as a Newcastle bound X1 pulled in at the set-down stand. Presumably, we thought, taking the sensible option of doing the driver changeover away from a huge queue. Nope! Turns out that one was broken too, so the passengers were piled off to join the masses, forming a fourth queue! At this point, people in the queue(s) had resorted to arguing about where the front of the queue is.
A passing engineer tried to hurry past the queue to one of the casualties parked up. A couple of passengers tried to ask him what's happening to all of the buses, to which he flippantly remarked "nothing to do with me!" (or something along those lines). He was met with a synchronised handful of expletives, which I don't condone, but then again, there are better and more professional ways of handling conflict.
Eventually, around 08.20, a Newcastle-bound X1 (that was actually in service! pulled in. The driver alighted passengers at Stand E, but then started boarding passengers from there, which isn't what the instruction says on the stand. This caused a bit more arguing in the queue, with people coming to the realisation that not everyone is going to get on board. To his credit, the driver was up and down the stairs and also out the cab at the doors, queue managing as best as possible to reach capacity.
I was a bit far back in the queue, so I went back inside to sit by Stand F. My new plan was to wait for the 08.28, knowing this would likely run, as I could see it was on time on the 85A.
In the meantime, and one of the X1s that had become a casualty and offloaded passengers earlier, ended up being fixed and going back into service. As this had broken down on Stand F, I happened to see the destination being set and was let on to an empty bus with two others joining me. The 08.28 had since arrived, so we made our way off and into Newcastle from that point. Arrival into Newcastle some hour and 40 minutes after leaving the house.
Evening
Not wanting a repeat of this morning's chaos, and having spotted that there were gaps in the X1 and 56, I decided to leave the office about 14.50 once my meeting had finished. A walk down to Market Street, I intended to catch a 27 to Heworth followed by a 4. Although it's slightly longer, the queues are often a lot shorter than the X1 at Eldon Square.
The 27 pulled in promptly and we were away to Gateshead and then to Heworth. Few minutes late, but nothing to write home about. Another short wait at Heworth, and a 4 pulls in. At this point it felt like things were a bit too good to be true!
Sadly, that's where it ended. We got as far as the lay by on the Wardley slip road. Having dropped a passenger off there, it seemed that the parking brake of the bus was stuck on, and it sounded like there was no air pressure in the brakes. After a bit of button mashing, the driver announced that he had broken down, and people to wait for the next bus - which was only 5 minutes away, according to the paper timetable!
The next bus was actually about 8 minutes late at Heworth Golf Club, inbound to Heworth, so there was no chance it was appearing in 5 minutes. Regardless of this, most of the OAPs on board piled off, presumably to be first in line and in hope of gaining the cherished front row on the next bus.
After eventually contacting the depot on the phone, a bit more button mashing and restarting later (whilst most of the passengers stood out in the cold), the driver got the bus working again (hooray!) and everyone piled back on. At this point, we were about 18 minutes late, having left Heworth on time.
Knowing I'd miss the 2A, my plan was to get an (16.17) 84 from Concord instead. "Get that ridiculous thought out of your head!", said Mr. GNE! I could see getting into Concord that there was a big queue at Stand A, as it appears the 15.57 didn't run. To make matters worse, the 16.17, which was running 10 minutes late at this point, was being operated by our old faithful, the comedy bus (790).
I opted for staying on the 4 to the Galleries and getting an 85 instead. I could see there were 3 bunched together. One I'd probably (and did!) just miss, followed by one 10 mins and 16 mins behind.
The 85 on 10 mins appeared to be stuck on that for the duration and ended up being the on-time (16.48). The one on 16 mins appeared to vanish half way through my wait, but interestingly the one I boarded was still showing as 10 mins as we were pulling away. So much for the advice to check the app!
So after leaving the office at 14.50, and taking into account two 5 minute walks at either side of buses, I arrived back home at 17.00. Some 2 hours and 10 minutes after leaving the office.
In conclusion
I've spent the best part of 4 hours today doing what should be a simple journey in and out of Newcastle City Centre, to my office. People who don't use buses are often quick to suggest it's because of the flyover and Tyne Bridge work, but that couldn't be further from the truth.
The fact is that the corridor down Old Durham Road into Gateshead, through Gateshead Town Centre, on to and over the Tyne Bridge in to Newcastle, is arguably some of the best bus priority in the region. Once you're actually on a bus, it can almost glide through queues of cars because of the investment in putting this priority in place. Yes, there's still sets of lights to contend with, but this is massively better than before we had all this in place.
These delays are caused by sheer incompetence of the bus operator, with an attitude that comes across as if they don't give a toss. The Go North East network, over two decades now, but over the past few years has been cut to the absolute brink. The frequencies don't match the demands, and at peak times, they simply struggle to cope. This is exactly what the Arriva County Durham operation became under the same MD - and this is before you throw in their inability to get wheels turning on the road.
In days gone by, you'd have a variety of routes, so you'd at least have a plan B if something goes wrong. You have none of that now.
GNE make a lot of schemes to grow their customer base, which of course we want to see, but they seem to have a complete disregard for customer retention. It's pointless winning new customers, if you're haemorrhaging them at the other end.
I see myself as being the market that they should be looking to win back. I'm a hybrid worker with a local office base. I don't use a private car, and if I do go anywhere for myself, it tends to be by public transport. Genuinely, I'd see myself going into the office on a much more regular basis, if it didn't feel like such a disaster every time I did. Because of this, it's rare that I'm in the office more than 1 or 2 days a month.
GNE need to do a lot more here. If they've got an issue with vehicles, then they need to be open and honest with people, and they can look to make other arrangements (where possible), rather than being left standing around in the cold. I had contacted GNE last week, suggesting they put a more widespread service disruption note out, given their issues are affecting most Washington depot services. This still hasn't happened, and they're instead pointing people to an unreliable app, despite me pointing out that people will only check the app when their bus hasn't turned up! Why is this so hard to post?
If I was running an operation that had issues as bad as the Washington depot had last week, I'd be demanding that there's staff on hand at key places (e.g. Washington, Concord and Newcastle), so customers had some help and information. Hiding away is probably the warmer option, but it's not the right option for your customers.
End.
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