(03 May 2015, 12:37 pm)Dan wrote Again, I'm inclined to agree.
I've brought this up myself on a number of occasions now, and nobody has yet been able to provide me with an answer as to why just three vehicles (which received specific branding for service 35) were ordered for the service. Half of the allocation is new stock, and half of the allocation is ancient stock, operating with different liveries and different internal specifications.
The demand is there, all the 35/a's that I have used have had decent to full loadings between Ashington and Morpeth, so I'd assume that an upgrade would be due, iirc the last upgrade was the 57-reg Centros. I would have got a 16 new vehicle order for the X21/22 and have 7501-7507 refurbished to the new specification for the 35/a.