(04 Jul 2018, 12:31 pm)Jimmi wrote 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.

Thanks for the quick response again. I'm quite interested in all of this stuff (very weird - I know). I've just recently left New College Durham after studying graphic design, and one of the units that was covered was based on something of our choice to present at an exhibition. I decided to rebrand all of Arriva's current liveries: Sapphire into Majestic, MAX into Express, Frequenta into Frequalink, and the Eco livery in Eco Network. I made miniature 3D card models so I really had to focus on all of the branding involved on the designs - if you'd like to see them, I'd be happy to attach some photos of the exhibition. I guess taking inspiration from the Belmont vehicles was a mistake then, considering they do look awful.

Another thing I was curious about was the 23... what on earth happened to that? One day it was a lovely, bright green eco-friendly brand and the next all of these Pulsars from Darlington get sent in to replace them... what is the reasoning behind this and are there any plans to upgrade the 23 to another brand? Lots of questions, I know. Sorry.