(04 Jul 2018, 1:05 am)Jimmi wrote The 22 will unlikely to be busy enough to justify double deckers. 6 only has them due to the service interworking with scholar's contracts and college runs, 7 has them for busy peak loadings and I think 7538/7539 only ever ended up on the 24 because of Arriva changing their plans to upgrade the 22/24 to Sapphire spec before the 6 due to road works going on in Durham at the time, meaning the 22/24 ended up with the buses that were originally meant to go on the 6.

7539 is allocated to both the 22/24 as both services now interwork, on weekdays it usually seems to be on the same board which starts off the day on the peak X46 journey from Stanhope to Framwellgate Moor. Arriva are useless with route branding which is probably why it still only has 24 branding, at least one of the StreetLite's still only has branding for the 22 as well, the branding was not removed from 7539 at any point.

Thanks for answering my question. I agree that Arriva are useless when it comes to route branding, as opposed to Go North East which tends to be clear and consistent with artwork. Yes, I've also noticed that one of the Streetlite vehicles still holds branding solely for the 22 - drives me insane when I see it! To be fair, I think most of the Streetlite vehicles for the 22|24 look they are branded for a "2" service due to one of the '2' on 22, and '4' on 24, vinyl stickers being peeled off so quickly after the rebrand on at least two of them.

I must have been thinking of 7538 when referring to the vehicle that had the 24's branding removed - has it been branded with anything since?

I wish Arriva took more pride in their presentation like Go North East does, particularly on Sapphire which is intended to be a "premium" brand. It quite undermines the "premium" concept when their branding materials are evidently cheap and tacky, peeling off within days of being applied - unless that's down to the carelessness of the people who apply them or the surface they are stuck onto - I don't know.