(16 Oct 2021, 8:59 pm)peter wrote Northumbria currently have 28 Solo's for a theoretical PVR of 16 - massive overkill. At the moment 2801/2/16/21 seem to be out of use at Blyth while 2827 is long-term VOR if Bustimes is to believed, but that's still 7 spares. (Which makes it kind of strange that 1800 is now seeing use at Jesmond when there's 4 Solo's laid up at Blyth.) Of course the reality is that when the Cross Pennine Omnicities were withdrawn and had to be replaced by Pulsars, it became the case that there weren't enough full-size single decks at Jesmond for the remaining services and so some Solo's do seem to be regularly allocated to the 52/53/54 circuit. 

The key problem is there's nowhere else for them to go. The only other depot suitable for Solo's would be Darlington and they have more than enough. I had a similar conversation elsewhere regarding Arriva's excessive number of Solo's where depots like Jesmond and Durham would benefit from much more standardised fleets and fewer Solo's because of their lack of fixed allocations and their regulation of services. The only ways to solve this problem would be to increase the frequency of some services but reduce the capacity - something Arriva seem to be doing the opposite of as seen by the likes of the 1 and 2 in Blyth, while the alternative of course would be replacing the Solo's with some full size single-deck vehicles - at this stage I'm not sure which one is most unlikely.

Wonder if they might go to pastures new down South somewhere like Medway which still has 04 Darts lingering around.

I know T288 - T300 (61 plate Enviro's) don't have a home down in London and it's been mentioned on the Arriva London forums (just rumours) that they've might be coming up here especially with them being Euro 6.

Be ideal to see out the 57 and 09 plates at Ashington and maybe for the 306 with them muddling everything around to get arid of all the 51-03 Deckers with 7614 back at Blyth. Should be doable.