(17 Mar 2016, 8:44 pm)Kuyoyo wrote Not every Sapphire shift will be a full shift on Sapphire routes - there's a few of the Stockton ones that do Middlesbrough town routes as well as 5s (not to mention the Stockton Sapphire rota also has the S1 on Saturdays meaning a full day working on Stockton routes). Likely some Durham shifts are the same (despite them have more Sapphire routes than any other depot).
It makes sense not to stick to one route. A round trip on the 22 or 24 from Durham is 3 hours, for example. 2 of those isn't going to fill a full working day for a full time driver, even with statutory allowances for breaks. Some of the runs on the 6 are much shorter, but there's not enough of those to make up every driver's hours exclusively on a Sapphire service.