(23 Jan 2020, 6:23 pm)L469 YVK wrote Sorry to say this but after driving through Gosforth today, Arriva looks very run down. The only decent and or new vehicles within Northumbria now are 7541-52.Oh so the 'goldmine' services are using 8 year old VDL Gemini's that were refurbished a few years back (308 ones even more recently) whereas the Durham County arm of Arriva North East has many Pulsars of a similar age and some now 11 years old that have never had any TLC besides a mop and bucket, think we know which part of the North East really gets the good end of the deal, so boo hoo...
- Allocations on Jesmond routes are a joke
- 8-10 year old VDL Geminis still running some of Blyth's 'goldmine' services with cast off E400s and Volvo B7TLs also seeing use.
- Non existent Customer Services and Service Delivery
Not saying GNE and SNE are perfect by any means but the whole of Arriva's operation needs a shake up from top to bottom. Will probably never happen until DB sell it after asset stripping it. I personally hope whoever buys the operations from DB (either in whole or part) give them some much needed TLC.
Granted I will admit the interior could be a bit more inspiring, not a fan of that droplets of paint splattered on floor look and USBs would be nice but compared to other parts of the network, they ain't doing too badly.