(08 Jul 2017, 7:05 pm)S813 FVK wrote Surely on what would be a more chaotic day than usual, people would appreciate why buses were running together, even on the 15 minute frequency between Chester-le-Street and Durham?

I am not going to hold back from speculating that the Merc refurbs (which they did not need to go to the expense of doing) have something to do with the fare increases. I'm probably going to be wrong, but they will have increased the amount of money spent by sending them to Blackburn - they are going to want to get that money back so they can reinvest it in improving the service for the customers of other routes. The main way that they can do this is by raising fares.

The spares out is a daily occurrence. I was at Chester-le-Street before 7am the other morning, and there was an OmniDekka and President straight out of the depot in succession. Appreciate that spares need to be used from time to time to ensure service continuity, but it should be a last resort - not a regular resort. 

The 20s coming in were delayed slightly because of loadings. In hindsight, perhaps Deptford could have utilised some deckers? 21s going out seemed to be fine, but again, quite heavy loadings. 

I find that the delay in Durham on Gala day, isn't so much down to the road closures and increased traffic, but more so because Durham Bus Station organisation is piss poor. The two set down stands at the top are shut because of traffic running in both directions, but then you have buses being dumped on stands and causing chaos. The buses have no where to go, because there is an empty bus stood on the wrong stand. Its more of a problem to nip in the bud on one day a year, because it is let to slide on every other day of the year.