(22 Mar 2021, 8:09 pm)Rapidsnap wrote My trip last year from North Shields to London and back (a week before the original lockdown) was by NatEx (using GNE 7136 to London on the Sunday morning service 435, and 7140 coming back on the 425 during the Friday afternoon) and that only cost me £3.50 return.

Can't really knock that to be fair. I gave up looking about a year into being up here, the price was always more than the (quicker) Megabus, and about that of the train.

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(22 Mar 2021, 8:41 pm)Jimmi wrote I did some journeys in 2020 and there was some young-ish passengers on it, uni sort of age.

I must say I only plan on really using National Express again if the fare works out considerably cheaper than the train (or other travel options) as I see train as the preferable option as its more comfortable (found space on Gen 3 Levante's a bit poor) and the journeys are often longer, prices I've often found similar between NX and train but it's often worth the few extra quid for the train I feel.

I think that's it. Every time I looked, I could get a 16-25 ticket on LNER (or Virgin at the time) in 1st for the same, or say £5 more, than what I'd pay for a NatEx from here to Newcastle. Megabus was always cheaper than both. So after a while I just stopped even thinking about it as an option. (I can't remember exactly, but I seem to remember it might have also been routed via Glasgow, which made it even worse.)

I'm sure there is some market for what they do, it's just everytime I've been in Edinburgh Bus Station heading back here I've never seen a huge load on the NatEx - whereas you see decent loads leaving on all the CityLink/Megabus work.