(15 Feb 2021, 8:50 pm)Storx wrote Yeah definitely agreed, not sure how they'll even fix it without investment tbh as sending up old London deckers and expecting them to run on express routes to Berwick isn't going to work. Could possible take Darlington's but not sure what's going on down there neither as the 7 has been ran with Scania's and a Solo today so either it's a weird choice or the bunch down there are as bad.

Mind whoever thought interworking the 35/X21/X22 needs to be asked questions especially if Ashington had a say as it's no wonder there's even bigger problems now since they've lost the dumping ground of the 35 of putting the usual suspects on 7510, 7445 and 7446 - 7510 in particular which the depot staff obviously don't rate at all since the 1800 and earlier in the week 2809 have been allocated over it.

Be interesting to see if we get cancellations soon especially since it's a rare working in itself to have a day to have minis on the 57 so to be relying on them for the express work then it's a sitting duck.

Some of the Darlo 15 plates have never seemed amazing tbh, in terms of reliability anyway - 7538 was/is quite problematic iirc. The 14/64 plates aren't bad at all, it's just that they've been hammered so much over the past couple of years that they're picking up wear and tear niggles frequently now, and obviously major component issues more often than they would have otherwise. Ex-London stuff would likely be fine for a couple of years before landing again in the current situation, though really only if its Volvo stuff, we've seen with 7510 how bad ex-London E400s are.

Yeah they've lost the 35 dumping ground, however in theory that is what was dropped from the PVR requirement. So really 7445/6/84/86 should all be parked up. The X21/22 and 35 cycle has an identical PVR to the normal X21/22 cycle iirc, so 12x MMC and 2x 14 plates should cover it, obviously though the 14 plates are being punted onto Alnwick work. If they were kept standalone on 30 minute frequencies there'd be a boat load of layover time, so I understand the logic behind the combination.