(11 Sep 2021, 7:40 pm)Yorkshire Pudding wrote I like the "simplicity" of the 22/23/24, providing a fifteen minute service from Peterlee to Sunderland/ Durham/ Hartlepool but the 22 seems a bit of an oddity compared to the other two routesThe X21 ran hourly onwards from Peterlee to Sunderland until 2020. It used the MAN Gas buses from Darlington. The links you speak of were used less and less because of the absolute stagger that an X21 was. I doubt it will ever run beyond Peterlee again.
Durham to Hartlepool is a fairly straight line - or would be if the 24 didn't try to be a Town Service for half of Peterlee - Hartlepool to Sunderland is a fairly straight line - but Durham to Hartlepool is a ig of a "dog leg"
The only two things that the 22 has got going for it (AFAICS) are that it's a direct link from Durham to Dalton Park and that it might as well run as a through service because the Durham - Peterlee and Peterlee - Sunderland routes both deserve a fifteen minute service, so you might as well link the two halves together to dovetail with the Durham - Peterlee bit of the 24 and the Peterlee - Sunderland bit of the 23)
The half hourly GNE 65 provides a faster Durham - Dalton Park service, which got me wondering whether the Peterlee - Sunderland bit of the 22 would be better served by extensions of the X21/X22 through to Wearside instead?
That would at least provide some links like Newton Aycliffe/ Sedgefield to Dalton Park/ Sunderland - probably not going to be huge markets, but there can't be many people who are sitting on a 22 all the way from Durham to Sunderland at the moment given the frequency of the GNE 20/ X20
(apologies if this is a subject that's been debated to death - I've only recently joined so am reading through some of the long running threads!)
RE: Arriva North East: Service Suggestions