Guess I'll give you the review of my outing today.
0932 7 Newton Aycliffe - Durham Bus Station (ANE 1523)
Starting off the day with 1523, was pretty quiet when I boarded but sadly this didn't last as a large number of passengers jumped on at Chilton Wheatsheaf with a fair few more boarding at Ferryhill Market Place which annoyingly meant someone had to sit next to me for the remainder of the journey. Also when I jumped on two people were having a make out session at the back of the bus and I overheard them taking the mick out of the woman who nearly always boards this journey, chav scum!
1030 15A Durham Bus Station - Consett Bus Station (GNE 3830)
Quickly ran out of the Bus Station for a few photos which sadly all turned out terrible due to the position of the sun but I saw this entering the bus station so my mind was made up as to what I was going to do, yep a trip up to Consett. No-one else was wanting the 15A as I got to stand C so I had my pick of all the seats on the bus and I chose the obvious decision, the front seat upstairs on the drivers side of course! It's still hard to believe these are nearly now 17 years old now and they still perform fairly well although this isn't the best I've been on, that honour goes to it's sister 3831. Anyway back to today this was a pretty quiet journey especially upstairs where I think there was only me, an older man and another young lad. Before we knew it we arrived at Consett.
1125ish X71 Consett Bus Station - Burnhopefield Co-Op (GNE 6122)
This detour caused by 3830 gave me a problem as I was originally intended to head to the MetroCentre and the obvious way of getting there was to get the 45/46 but I didn't like the thought of spending around an hour on a StreetLite so I jumped on this instead. Another pretty quiet and I sat behind the staircase upstairs as there is a fair amount of legroom here. This performed pretty good including on the hills and was pretty smooth and quiet. I thought about getting off at Gateshead then get a bus to the MetroCentre but then I had a brainwave so I checked what times the 43 left Burnhopefield and I had roughly 10 minutes wait so I made the decision to alight here.
1159 43 Burnhopefield Co-Op - MetroCentre Bus Station (GNE 5288)
Diamond 5288 came thundering up the road bang on-time. Fortunately it was pretty quiet when I jumped on so I had a fair few choices of where to sit and thankfully my usual seat was unoccupied so I sat there (so predicable!). This preformed the route well and was an abundance of power and was comfortable, as I managed to get the seat where the legroom isn't reduced by the large air-con/heater is. The journey picked up more passengers as it got closer to the MetroCentre and we got there pretty much on-time which was great as I wanted a photo of the Mellor Fiat Bluebird on the Gateshead Central Taxis service 643.
1233 46? MetroCentre Bus Station - Newcastle, Clayton Street (GNE 5412)
Sadly didn't totally manage to avoid the StreetLite's today. Thankfully this example wasn't too bad, the emergency exit door didn't even rattle. Only real downside on this journey was it was rather stuffy especially with only two of the three windows open (three windows on StreetLite's, seriously!) alighted at Clayton Street outside Poundstretcher. Can't remember if this was on the 45 or 46.
Took some photos around Newcastle mainly around the Market Street and Grainger Street areas as I was wanting a shot of the freshly branded "The Crusader" 5330 but sadly a long time had passed and it still hadn't turned up by about 1350 so I made my way down towards Haymarket Bus Station as I thought the X18 was going to be a Sapphire Enviro 400 although Sapphire base liveried 1527 turned up instead, oh well! I did fear that 5330 would leave whilst I was at Haymarket but I made my way back down towards Market Street where I saw Bazza and someone else and waited in the hope 5330 was going to appear and thankfully it did. After getting my photo of 5330 I said left Bazza and headed to Newgate Street to catch the X21 back to Durham. Whilst waiting for the X21 I thought some woman was going to have my eye out with some plastic curtain rail thankfully this didn't happen.
1437 X21 Newcastle, Newgate Street - Durham Bus Station (GNE 6040)
As I saw the President come up the road I just thought "oh dear, here comes my underpowered steed back to Durham with the uncomfortable seats" although was surprised to see this example has the seats found in most of the ex London Presidents instead of the large chunky seats most of the Pronto branded examples have. Was even more surprised to find this example actually has some power. don't get me wrong it didn't exactly fly down the A1(M) but it's certainly the best I've seen a Pronto liveried President go down here recently. A few rattles and a few other noises of course but not too bad, certainly a much nicer bus than 6038 was the other day.
1537 7 Durham Bus Station - Newton Aycliffe (ANE 1516)
This was a pretty horrendous journey, it was another pretty busy journey so there was little choice of places to sit so I ended up sat near the back and at the back of this bus were three lads who feel the need to shout to each other despite being right next to each other and then there was the content of their conversations which was totally unsuitable for all the passengers to hear especially children and it seemed like every other word was the F-word and one of them kept "singing" along with that fast paced rap crap. Managed to keep my cool until thankfully they got off at Ferryhill Market Place, annoyingly the Sapphire WiFi decided to jump off here as well as at this point it was coming back with "WiFi limit exceeded. please try again later" this seems to be a new feature and annoyingly I always seem to exceed the limit now and it annoyingly applies to all Sapphire buses as it's happened when I've got a 7 to Durham then later jumped on the 22 although the Sapphire Enviro 400s seem to have the standard Icomera screen with Arriva logo so I don't exceed the limit on these. Hope they don't do the same for MAX as I would be a little annoyed if I got a X66 to Middlesbrough then the X93 to Whitby/Scarborough and exceed the limit before we reach Guisborough. Okay I've gone on a bit of a tangent here so back to this journey, was pleased to have the scum at the back of the bus off so I settled back and relaxed for the remainder of the journey home.
Anyway, thanks for reading this review, it's being a mixed day although I just about managed not to get wound up although I did it a bit annoyed trying to snake round all the people in Eldon Square. Unsure when my next outing is going to be yet.
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