(18 Feb 2020, 9:29 pm)Storx wrote If anyone was going to buy anything it would be per area. No way can you just drip and drop depots here and there. Don't know how you've come to these neither. You're creating less competition in most area.

GNE dominate Darlington / Bishop / North Tyneside / Peterlee it just makes no sense.

Also Whitby is an outstation of Redcar so you can't have one going to one and the other another.

If Stagecoach bought it (which your hinting) what likely would happen is they'd get everything bar Stockton which they'd be forced to sell off. All the other areas don't really cause any issues even known it's not for sale and they wouldn't buy it anyway.

The big 4 have much bigger issues with there finances due to cock ups with trains than to bother with buying more buses:
GoAhead (GNE) - Thameslink / Southern
Stagecoach - Virgin East Coast
Arriva - Northern
First - Avanti / Transpennine

Yeah, for the southern half of the region Stagecoach getting everything bar Stockton would make sense. Stockton would work perfect for GNE too if they got that as they'd be able to enhance the X9 / X10 by reducing dead mileage as well as offering later journeys back from Newcastle.

For Northumbria however, I think Jesmond would most likely need to go to GNE as although GNE would end up with a monopoly in parts of North Tyneside, Stagecoach would end up with a monopoly too (i.e Killingworth to Newcastle).

Ashington would be better under GNE too and I could see them running it as a 'hub and spoke' model similar to their Stanley and Washington services.