(03 Sep 2015, 4:36 pm)Dan wrote Saturday mornings towards Newcastle are hideous. Always seems to be a fully-laden double-deck from Chester-le-Street onwards.
Yep, I've seen people sitting on each other's knees upstairs in the run up to Christmas, but I've not been on weekday mid morning buses that are nearly so bad, even in December. Extra Saturday morning runs from CLS would make sense. I've never seen the 21 so packed, though, even though it doesn't take so much longer as to make it intolerable, unless another bus has been taken off for some reason.
In contrast, the top deck on the X21 from Newcastle (and the X12 and 21) is often pretty quiet, early-mid afternoon mon-sat.