We decided to head south, this weekend - Big'un had planned a route out, a while back, so we went with that one.
We managed (by necessity) to set off a little earlier than usual and arrived at Durham marketplace on the 22 just before 9:30. The traffic was remarkably light. Our bus was one of the 24 branded Pulsars - can't remember which. I discovered, the other day, that the back seats in this batch of vehicles are surprisingly deep and squishy, so that's where we sat. The trade off was a hot bum, of course!
Popped to the loo and into Pret (M&S still verboten) and walked down to the bus station to watch the goings on for a little while before boarding GNE 660 on the 208 at 10am. Our plan was to take it right through to Peterlee as we'd never done that before. It's a long 70 minute ride (half as long again as the ANE 22 and 24) but it was interesting taking all the back streets we'd never driven down before. Was slightly surprised to see our style of house replicated far wider than our own locality - ours is ex NCB but a lot of ex LA houses have the exact same footprint and basic layout. It was obviously a typical postwar social housing design in the region. The last part of the journey hugs the coast fairly closely, which tied in nicely with the next couple of stages of our journey. There were long sections of this journey when we were the only passengers.
Our next Bus was the 11:17 24 from Peterlee to Hartlepool - ANE 1599. Nowt to write home about, as if done this journey a fair few times, just not on this vehicle, which I more usually catch on the 22!
A very short walk and just a 5 minute wait for the SNE 1 to Middlesbrough. Big'un really wanted to do this and was doubly pleased that we'd ended up with a SPD, 35157. Boarding was a bit disconcerting, as the whole floor at the entrance of the bus bent every time someone stepped on board. There was an alarming amount of movement! Inside, though, the seats were fresh and clean looking and the general effect was quite spartan.
This was a surprisingly fascinating route. Once the driver had had a wazz at Seaton Carew (impressive beach there!), we wound through all the industrial estates along the coast, past the power station, bird sanctuary and so on.
We took a break for lunch and nose powdering in Middlesbrough, emerging from Debenhams (loos and not M&S!) to find the drizzle had become a bit more. We fast walked and then trotted over to the bus station and it started coming down stair rods as soon as we got through the door. Our next vehicle was another Pulsar on the 13:12 X67. The back seats in this Max vehicle were definitely not squishy and it's one of the rather rattly vehicles, so we sat in the 2nd row from the back.
The weather was a little better once we got to Darlo, so we stretched our legs a little before going for a coffee and cake.
The next part of Big'un's plan was to get the X1 on Crook, so we ended up on 1594 at 14:30. Notice that the engine sound was different to what we normally hear in a streetlite. Much less like Chewbacca and ore like the streetdecks on the Castles Express. Of course, this is one of the Euro 6 streetlites in the fleet!
This service is always well loaded, but today it was mostly with people who got on my nerves.
We'd just missed a 46 when we arrived at Crook, so went for a bit of a wander. The Weardale MAN/Wright meridian was parked up, so big'un stopped for a few pictures of that. We then went on a mercy mission to the Co-op because those damned mice had eaten every last biscuit in the house, again.
The next 46 pulled into the stop about the same time as we got back there. This one was another Pulsar - 1477. This one is missing a couple of chrome rings from its Wright badge, at the moment. Unfortunately, we never got chance to find out how good a Pulsar this one is, as we were stuck behind a pigging Fiat Panda, which seemed to be incapable of going faster than 30mph uphill. We were the only passengers for much of this journey.
We got into Durham with about 20 minutes to spare before our 16:37 22 home, so Big'un went to take some photos on the North Road roundabout. Our vehicle was an incredibly workaday streetlite - 1601, this time.
RE: Bus Related Outings and Reviews
