Review of today's outing.
0749 7 Newton Aycliffe - Darlington (ANE 7535)
0900 72 Darlington - Northallerton (Dales & District: T25 SVN)
1015 70 Northallerton - Ripon (Dales & District: YJ64 DXL)
1140 36 Ripon - Harrogate (Transdev Harrogate & District: 36??)
1330 36 Harrogate - Ripon (Transdev Harrogate & District: 3619)
1455 159 Ripon - Richmond (Dales & District: YJ60 LTZ)
1625 29 Richmond - Darlington (Dales & District: MP52 PZB)
1705 5 Darlington - Newton Aycliffe (ANE 1506)
Started off on 7535 on service 7 which was pretty busy, not helped by it running late. Annoyed that I walked for the 7 when I could have saved a walk by getting the 5A which got there just before the 7 did.
Last night I got a message from Alex Garwood asking if he could tag along with me today, and I said that was fine, with him meeting me in Darlington where we then got ex Leven Valley T25 SVN on the 72 which wasn't the best I'll be honest.
Next journey was another ex Leven Valley motor in the form of Solo SR YJ64 DXL which was being badly driven it has to be said, he was all over the road and nearly pulled out at a roundabout into oncoming traffic, so sharp braking was required there, was pleased to make it to Ripon alive.
Annoyingly in Ripon the driver of the 159 was the driver who I've had issues with before with him flicking the V's at us once again.
Then my first journey on one of Transdev's new Volvo B5TL/Wright Eclipse Gemini 3, quite liked the look of the interior although I couldn't seem to fold the trays out on the backs of the seats and they kept coming out at times. Don't know if it was the bus or just the driver but it seemed pretty slow. Eventually we got to Harrogate Bus Station and got stuck inside on the bus ages as we managed to catch up to the bus in front. Got photos where I got called something along the lines of f****** bus weirdos before making the return to Ripon where on this bus there appeared to be no WiFi although this journey seemed to go a bit faster than the journey to Harrogate.
After spending more time in Ripon getting a few photos we waited for our 159 to Richmond hoping that the driver who was on this morning wasn't going to be on, thankfully he wasn't and the fairly recently acquired Solo YJ60 LTZ operating this journey which made us both pretty happy as I don't believe either of us had ridden it and I don't believe Alex had a photo of it, on this journey we ended up sat with some old man having his own bus outing, he talked to Alex for pretty much the whole journey as I was sat in front of them and couldn't hear them for the engine.
Got the 29 back to Darlington, partly because it was the first bus heading there, MP52 PZB was allocated to this journey which made me quite happy, 29 is a canny route as it only takes around 40 minutes on most journeys which is not much longer than the X26/X27 takes and at times it can actually work out to be a faster journey.
Managed to just catch the 5 home with 1506 working the service. Pretty standard journey really.
Thanks for reading, I'm shattered after being out for three days. Heading to Sunderland on Wednesday which is my birthday then that bus tour from Newcastle on Saturday.
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