(04 Aug 2016, 12:02 pm)Jamie M wrote Don't normally rant during outings, but anyways. The long 19 is such a joke of a service. It would make more sense to extend the 309 to Ashington to ease pressure off the service. It's often as much as 40 minutes late on runs where it started on time. On top of the 310, you can see journeys in excess of 3 hours from Ashington to Newcastle - which is frankly stupid. Blyth -> Ashington would be an extra 20-30 minutes at the max - halving the time from Newcastle to Ashington.Remember with these routes, it's never about the journey from end to end. You can drive from Durham to Sunderland or Hartlepool in under half an hour, but the 22, 24 and Scarlet band 58 all take almost 90 minutes. If they didn't, they wouldn't pick up that many passengers because not many people live on the A690, or whatever!
The solars are alright, the journey on the 19 is alright - just excessive end to end. Will write up a suggestion later..
Delays can be problematic with longer routes, mind. That's why GNE split up the 43/44 into the 16/16A and the 6.