(07 Jun 2020, 8:34 pm)Michael wrote I heard from a friend, that if the North East was to get new buses, Sunderland would be next, he said someone high up had told them... take it with a pinch of salt though.

I would like Sunderland to become a fully gas run depot, that was the plans years ago but now i would imagine, orders will be lower over the next few years due to this crisis.

Hopefully the Government release funding for buses to help with buying greener buses.

24001-24003 were planned to be withdrawn in the Sunderland changes for April, i would imagine these will still go ahead and will be put in place when "normal" service resumes.

I don't get why Stagecoach are still running a Sunday service when GNE are running at least 80% of their services...

Because the demand for such service is not there at the moment, GNE opted to run 80% of their services as they didn't know what passenger numbers were going to be like following those returning to work last week to in part was a smart move as it has allowed a lot of room for social distancing on services as they were getting busier on the temporary timetable.

From personal experience in the last week of using the 21/25/X21 & 309 between home and work there has been no more than 5 people on the services at any one time so a reduced timetable of 50% of what they are running now I would say would be enough, more so if double deckers were allocated to the majority of services which operate with single decks at the moment.