(08 Jan 2014, 4:15 pm)Greg in Weardale wrote The branding is the one thing which makes GNE special and stand out from the others - they need to do something to stand out as their services are deteriorating (dare I mention X3 again!!!). The one good thing about the Sunderland changes is that the X36 is going to be branded - the rest of the new routes are going to boring almost plain red, even more drab now the "northern" name seems to have been dropped, another negative move. Most branding is well designed and well-liked by everyone I know, enthusiasts and ordinary passengers alike. I think ALL routes/groups of routes should be branded, with say one spare branded vehicle for each five to cover routine maintenance, with a few red vehicles - in a more exciting Northern (or if you must, GNE) general livery - to cover other
VOR. Then much more effort should be made to avoid branded buses on the wrong routes. If all buses were going to be the dull red livery, you might as well have the depressing Nexus red and grey with their Quality Contract - although I hate that concept, I'm sure Nexus wouldn't have "designed" the new X3 timetable .
Lol, you wouldn't surely slam the X3 would you, your borderline obsessive about it...Am kidding with ya mate
.Out of interest, without sounding thick, what does VOR stand for(Vehicle Off Road perhaps)...
As for branding, I will never be a supporter of it, dont know why, I just never will, and dont see why a standard livery cannot be used across the whole fleet, Arriva amd Stagecoach dont use mass branding...
If GNE insists on it, then they should keep it on it's more lucrative routes, something like Superliner or Go Xpress from days gone by, brand the sucessful Express Services i.e X1 and X9 and 10
As for the X36, I think it should be fully merged into X35 and newly branded the Barbary Coastliner in honour of our Simian Strangler friends in Hartlepool...Barbary being a species of Monkey and there being a part of Sunderland called the Barbary Coast
, jk...