(04 Jul 2018, 11:57 am)BeachBoy99 wrote 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.

7538 is still unbranded at Darlington depot, wasn't branded as when it moved to Darlington it was sort of considered a Sapphire spare although it was allocated to the 5A board that works the morning run to Bishop Auckland College although after a few months the additional capacity wasn't required on that 5A run, so is now primarily used on the 7.

Can't remember but 7523 may have briefly ran at Belmont with no branding before being route branded for the 6. 7518 is unbranded still at Belmont.

The presentation of the Belmont Sapphires is appalling, missing and peeling branding and wrong coloured panels are clearly visible on a large number of them.