(05 Nov 2017, 1:25 pm)tcts24 wrote OK took a Pennine 7 (EBR850S) IN 1978, having checked the fleet history it was the only Seddon they ever had. Darlington on the other hand developed a habbit of buying naff buses eg. Daimler Roadliner, Seddon Penine RU, single deck Dennis Dominator and of course the infamous Ward Dalesman! It would be interesting to see if theres anyone on here old enough to remember some of these buses and can compare them to Solos and Streetlites of today. My native Hartlepool had RU demonstrator HBU451J on loan in 1972. We also had the single deck Dominators but had the good sense to get rid of them in favour of REs a decade older. I'm 35 and I barely remember our Dominators so I can't really pass judgement. I do however remember the rather dire Wadham Stringer bodied Dennis Falcons Hartlepool had. At the time, they were among the younger buses we had available in the town (including much of the Tees fleet) so didn't seem all that bad as a customer. In hind sight though, I'd take a Streetlite any day!

 I drove the Seddon when it was new it was noted as very economical. There were some issues with the throttle and it had a manual gearbox and you were not able to jump across the gate to select gears and needed to follow the gate I also drove the X1 streetlites from new and found the steering heavy similar to the Leyland Tigers of the 1980's this was very tiresome as the route had tight turns at Roddymoor, Stanley and Tow Law.When they first came we thought the 2 with merc engines superior but soon the cummins engined  examples settled in and proved to be better The gear change was often jerky and raised comments from customers.Voith reset parameters on several occasions and the drvers developed a style to help but this was an extra burden on the driver while trying to keep time on a busy service  I now drive Volvo engined coaches and these are so much smoother and a pleasure to drive