0836 21 Newton Aycliffe Town Centre - Sedgefield Green (ANE 4811)
0854 21A Sedgefield Green - Middlesbrough Bus Station (ANE 1417)
1015 64 Middlesbrough Bus Station - Eston Square (ANE 7486)
1052 63 Eston Square - Redcar Rail Station (ANE 1433)
1233 81 Redcar Clock - Stokesley (ANE 4511)
1357 29A Stokesley - Middlesbrough (ANE 1472)
1540 X67 Middlesbrough Bus Station - Darlington Tubwell Row (ANE 1502)
1715 7 Darlington Tubwell Row - Newton Aycliffe Town Centre (ANE 1595)
1755 5 Newton Aycliffe Town Centre - Home (ANE 1511).
Decided to have an outing on Teesside and decided to have a reasonably early start. For a change of scenery I decided I would head via Sedgefield rather than Darlington so I boarded the 0836 21 from Aycliffe Town Centre with this journey being worked by MAN EcoCity 4811 which was totally sweltering as heat was being pumped through the bus, as the last few times I've sampled this bus the WiFi hasn't being working and of course today was no different. On this bus a noticed someone in black shirt and trousers noting stuff down and talking to the driver. The connection between the 21 and 21A in Sedgefield is pretty tight, just 3 minutes, so did I manage to make the connection...
...Yes! ex Belmont Pulsar 1417 provided me with the next leg of my journey to Middlesbrough. Not the best Pulsar I've been on but still pretty decent ride and didn't shake when stationary unlike most of Darlington's 09 reg examples. As we got close to Stockton the driver had an issue with one of the passengers college passes and asked two passengers on-board to show their passes.
After a bit of a break I headed to the bus station to see if there was anything interesting to ride and I saw a Volvo B7TL / Wright Eclipse Gemini parked up next to an X93 MAX Gemini so waited to see where it was going (was obviously going to be one of the 22/64/64A as they are the only routes at Redcar where double deckers can be used (although only the Middlesbrough - Redcar High Street section of the 22), the only others that I know of are the 81/81A and X93, but another Gemini came in and became the 64 to New Marske so I hopped on that. Although this is now 14 years old it looks incredibly smart inside and on previous trips on these Gemini's on the X93 the WiFi hasn't worked but surprising on 7486 it was with the MAX login page coming up. If you've never done the 64 route before most of it looks as rough as a badgers arse especially South Bank despite that ginormous sign and watering can on the roundabout just outside South Bank. Decided to bail at Eston Square in the hope of getting a photo of 7486 but I forgot about all the bloody railings so it I was left with a pretty naff head on shot. Tried to snap Sapphire 1440 on the 64A which was 10 minutes behind the 64 but I didn't know where it was coming from and I wasn't working well with my camera as I failed to snap 1440, twice! so a bit hacked off I got the 63 to Redcar which was Pulsar 1433.
Not a great deal to say about the journey on the 63 but it got pretty busy as the journey went on. Again not the nicest route in the world it has to be said. A few passengers decided to alight at the stop just before Redcar Central Railway Station and as the level crossing closed stopping traffic I decided to bail here as well in the hope of getting a train photo but was too late so carried on foot into Redcar doing a bit of spotting. After some Cooplands Sausage Rolls, I carried on getting some photos and spotted 4511 on the 81A to Marske so I decided that I'd get on that when it came back from Marske, in the meantime I checked to see if there was any trains leaving from Redcar Central and there was trains at 12:09 and 12;10 so I made my way over there and after having to get past someone practically walking on the very edge of the platform nearly falling off I spotted Class 156 - 156484 in the distance about to depart for Saltburn I quickly ran up the platform for a photo as it's pretty rare to see Class 156's head to Saltburn at this time of the day so it was a brilliant accidental catch for my Flickr, also got 142022 heading to Bishop Auckland. After this I made my way to Redcar Clock which was displaying the wrong time to wait for 4511 on the 81.
I decided to sit in the quadrant seats on the drivers side for this journey, this is one of the examples which hasn't been treated to a refurbishment unlike 4515 which was also on the 81/81A yesterday along with Temsa 4710. Along the route to Guisborough I thought it wasn't very quick especially on hills, I did think about jumping off 4511 at Guisborough especially as I worked out 4515 would be in Guisborough at around the same time, unfortunately we were running a few minutes late and then we got stuck at the lights so 4515 left before I could get off, so I decided to stay on all the way to Stokesley. Sadly we fell even further behind time on this journey as we were stuck behind a tractor for a "good" 10 minutes, after we finally lost the tractor 4511 decided to prove me wrong about it being slow by flying on the road between Great Ayton and Stokesley annoyingly though some walkers had to ruin that by wanting to be off the bus in the middle of nowhere where there was no bus so that slowed us down. Arrived in Stokesley late so annoying meant I ended up with photos of the 81 and 29A on the High Street instead of a slightly more scenic shot of the 29A, although I tried to get a more scenic shot of the 81 on a bridge but sadly traffic ruined that, typical there was pretty much nothing in the minutes before the bus came then when it showed everything was heading into Stokesley, some loud swears were uttered after that so then I waited for the 29A.
Another ex Belmont Pulsar for this journey on the 29A in the form of 1472 which unfortunately shook at the back when stationary which got annoying when we got closer to Middlesbrough when the bus had to wait time in places. Not a great deal else to say about this journey. I arrived in Middlesbrough and decided to do a bit of Christmas shopping but instead just ended up buying myself stuff instead, as I can't imagine any of you are interested in what I did on my shopping break I'll leave it at that although when trying to leave Footasylum I was trying to get past somebody and my coat got caught on a shoe rack and I almost knocked it over. Anyway back to buses, I saw 1502 in the bus station so made my way to the bus stop for it to work the X67 to Darlington.
First time I've done the whole X67 route and probably the first time I've ever rode 1502 so I decided it would be an interesting journey. Couldn't connect to the WiFi on here. On this journey we went past Thornaby Station as normal then we went straight up Riverside to reach Stockton High Street with a fair few boarding in Stockton many of which jumped off around Hartburn. Even with all the promotion about the changes made nearly a fortnight ago and some still don't seem to know where it goes as when we turned instead of heading straight on through the roundabout a few people were going "where is he going" and generally looking peed off and then when the bus arrived in Darlington there was a few people not amused and asking where the bus was heading next which was the X66 back to Middlesbrough. So it seems not everybody is happy with these service changes.
Went off round Darlington for a bit before heading back to Tubwell Row where I planned to catch StreetLite 1595 on the 7 to provide me with a bit more variety as I was a bit sick of Pulsars, unfortunately the bus arrived in Darlington over 15 minutes late so was a bit of a boring wait. 1595 eventually turned up and everyone jumped straight on as of course being a Belmont working no driver change occurred, first thing I noticed about this was the lack of interior branding and there being no next stop announcements for the 7. This journey unfortunately ended up running even later as the traffic getting out of Darlington Town Centre especially at Northgate Roundabout was horrendous and someone in a van cut in front of us at Northgate Roundabout as he was in the wrong lane and the slow moving continued until we got to Harrowgate Hill Roundabout. Although StreetLite's have a bad reputation on here I actually didn't mind my journey on this and the emergency exit door barely made a sound unlike the GNE X66 StreetLite I had on Monday and I swear the Go North East examples are worse than Arriva's, even on the MAX X1 heading along the A68 past Burtree Gate where the road surface is pretty shocking the emergency exit door will barley make a sound whereas on the X66 example I had the other day on a smooth road it was shaking like mad, making sounds like a pneumatic drill, full of screws. Checked the Arriva Live Map to see if the 5 had left Aycliffe Town Centre and thankfully the 7 arrived first which was good especially I didn't fancy walking home especially as one route has no lights and all other routes has those awful white lights which tend to only light a small area, they are so bad I often have to use the flashlight on my phone to see where I'm going. Got some teenagers laughing me as I got a shot of 1595 although it was so dark you couldn't tell which StreetLite it was and also got an EcoCity on the 21 but that one didn't turn out too well. Then I had a short journey on 1511 on the 5 home.
Well, that's what I got up to yesterday with some good things happening and a few naff things as well. Tomorrow I may be doing a rare Sunday outing.
Thanks for reading
