(26 Dec 2020, 11:06 am)Andreos1 wrote Presumably bigger GAG requirements came in to play when they signed off the refurb of the Mercs and sent up a load of Omnis to keep the native and unrefurbished ones going? The same Omnis that are older than the Mercs sent off to Manchester. 

The decision to send all 23 to Manchester was based on the success of one passing its trial evaluation. 
The decision by GNE to apparently not use an alternative supplier (possibly a different supplier to the one GNW have used in the past) was made well before the trial even happened. 

I'm a big fan of both the Omni and Citaro, but can't see any logic in any of these decisions or the explanations given.

Surely it's due to there being no Citaros in S. Tyneside who gave the funds for the mods other than the 9 which has been upgraded anyway. There'd be a lot more moaning if they intentially sent Citaros or the 09 Versas for the 5/50 just to get Euro 6 mods (and deservably so aswell) as stupid as it was to do them mind but they'd be wasted on the Stagecoach locals routes and after that there's not much left. Believe the E's and X34 are done and the 26/27 are definitely done.

I'm still curious whether we might see Black Cat Streetlites leaving Deptford as the 12/57 still need to be done and there's nothing realistically left now to replace them otherwise they're going to be in the same position soon up here.