(19 Feb 2016, 2:46 pm)Jimmi wrote Thought it was a bit silly to put 7 year old buses on a 'premium quality' branded service.I know it was half term this week, but on Monday I used the X21 for only the third time since December, and the amount of passengers surprised me. It would have been the 14:54 from Newcastle, and when I boarded in Bedlington, both decks were at least half full.
The thing with passenger numbers on the X21/X22 is it probably does very well on the peak time runs but it doesn't seem to carry as much out of peak times based on my experiences of the services, in fact in my experiences of off peak X21/X22's the journeys have often carried less passengers between Newcastle and Ashington than the Sapphire 7 often carries just between Darlington Town Centre and Harrowgate Hill. Mind the same could probably be said for the likes of the X7/X8, X10/X11 and the 308.
The fact that there isn't really anything in the way of appropriate spares for the route doesn't really help matters either, don't know what's worse, a double decker with non of the additional features of the Sapphire buses but has enough seats to carry the passengers or putting the 35 branded StreetLite's on with some of the advertised features but less seats with passengers on the 35/35A getting older lower specification as a result of being allocated elsewhere.
The other issue is where would the Enviro 400's go if they were to take them off the X21/X22? Especially with money being spent on them being refurbished to Sapphire specification.
As much as it is a terrible situation, I think it's just going to continue for a while longer, as I can't see them being taken off the X21/X22 anytime soon. In fact, I think if any service currently in the Sapphire brand within the North East is to receive more new Enviro 400's, it will be the 7.
In my view, they could use the ones that have less problems as spares, however I've got no clue where the worst ones (7501/4 seem to be the main culprits) would go.
In my experiences, peak time on the X21/22 starts earlier and finishes later than most other services. The amount of passengers that get on/off in Bedlington in peak time surprised me, although I guess that is down to the fact most residents there commute to Newcastle to work, with very little on offer in the town itself?