(26 Nov 2016, 11:49 pm)L469 YVK wrote Don't want to stray onto suggestions here but could the following not happen subject to orders:
- X21 increased to every 20 minutes.
- 21 changed to Chester - Newcastle
only running every 10 minutes with increased running / recovery time.
Problem with this idea is if you change the 21 to no longer run between Durham and Chester-le-Street, you would lose the link to Durham from parts of Chester-le-Street, Barley Mow, Birtley and Low Fell (excluding the Cannon stop) admittedly Barley Mow and Birtley would still have a limited service to/from Durham on service X22 but it's still not ideal, also you would have to probably arrange it so it serves all stops between Durham and Chester-le-Street in place of the 21.
In regards to the timekeeping on the 21, it is just one of those services where it's difficult to schedule and keep to time, it takes very little for things to go askew to affect the timekeeping, sometimes hitting traffic lights on red or taking ages to get out of junctions can Knock it all to hell and this is when it starts running in twos.