(18 Aug 2015, 9:44 pm)BusLoverMum wrote Internally, it's very uninspiring and ordinary. When it's doing any sort of speed, there's a deep painful noise from the engine that goes right through you - it sounds strained and it rattles like hell. Defo more suited to more local routes. Would be fine on the 21 route to CLS but is awful on the A167 stretch towards Durham. Would be a good bus if the loop needed more capacity.
And I hate the external look, but I hate silver cars, too. They look bald. It's exaggerated on this by the shallow windows, somewhat.
Doesn't sound great then, I'm not a fan of the interiors of Arriva Geminis, I find everything very dull and, like you find the demonstrator, ordinary.
If it's sounding strained now, I can't imagine what it'll be like after 5 years on the route...
(18 Aug 2015, 9:57 pm)Jimmi wrote Looks can be deceiving! It's not the best in terms of speed, I had another ride on it on Friday afternoon and wasn't it wasn't great, you can even tell just by riding it that it's slow. I don't think it's the ideal choice for the X21, would be fine on say a cross city/town route but I don't feel it's a perfect fit for the X21.
Although it seems slow when riding, have you ever been on it and it's been late, maybe the driver has just been driving a bit slower to avoid running early?
I can't imagine it being bang on time on every journey though, so I hope for the sake of X21 passengers, GNE go for the E400MMC.