(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.
The solars are alright, the journey on the 19 is alright - just excessive end to end. Will write up a suggestion later..
Never seen a 19 run 40 minutes late, and I live on the northern end of the route. The route is only 1hr 30min long and nobody travels Ashington to North Shields, unless it's faster than travelling via Newcastle and Metro, of which it generally is. The 19 is just a route that connects people to places on the route, for example, Cramlington, Seaton Delaval and Silverlink...
Arriva operate the main core services from Ashington to Newcastle in 40-60 minutes. If GNE wanted to run a Newcastle to Ashington service they'd do it direct, and again why would GNE compete with Arriva between Ashington and Blyth?
I say this time and time again, if people can't handle 90-120min journeys for leisure, they won't be able to handle the 685, X15/X18 etc...