(30 Oct 2019, 10:49 pm)BusLoverMum wrote </p><p>
</p><p><br></p><p>There's long stretches of the 8, 78, 28s, X70/71 and the 16s that are most definitely rural. There's barely even any phone signal around much of beamish, no place, high handenhold and the peltons. In contrast, the services you mentioned all spend a good chunk of time on the A1 and are probably more comparable to the X21 than the county Durham services I've mentioned. </p><p>
</p><p><br></p><p>They're totally different bus routes and are still very sub urban in comparison to the X14/5/6/8/20 where there's sections of 20+ mins passing nowhere (not express) and journey times of over 3 hours and are totally differently ran hence the streetlites on most of the above which would never work on those.<br></p><p><br></p><p>Other than the X21 and X22 it's what Ashington depot is plus the 35 which is more like the Stanley buses above. Stagecoach definitely have better experience in bus routes like them with the 685 (Carlisle to Newcastle), 10 (Aberdeen - Inverness via Moray towns) and the X98/X99 (Inverness - Thurso) just to the name a few which are run by low floor coaches for sthe 10/X98/X99 which would be more suited imo because of the length of the journeys. The X93 is the same down Middlesbrough.</p><p><br></p><p>I don't expect either of them to go to Stagecoach or GNE anyway tbh and think it will be floated rather than sold in the end anyway.<br></p><p><br></p><p><br></p>