(30 Jan 2022, 11:20 pm)Thomas12 wrote Great report, I really enjoyed reading that - thanks for sharing! Hope you make some more reports in the future  

Just looked at the new 684 timetable, and it's good to see the 685 journeys included. I noticed the wording is 'At the moment, single and return tickets can only be used on the route for which they are bought'. This suggests that something may be in the pipeline to have mutual ticket acceptance?

Also, just a note on your point about coordination of the services. I think the coordination is more aimed at Heddon-Newcastle, rather than Hexham-Newcastle. I'm not sure what the best approach would be here, but I guess it's either one or the other based on the timings and different routes of the two services. 

I still however feel like the X85 is a victim of the X9/X10 coaches not working out - maybe it would still be here if not?

Cheers! 

On ticket acceptance: You'd think this would be relatively straight forward to agree commercially, so its disappointing that this hasn't happened prior to the changes taking place and the timetable being published. Although it's in print that the restriction applies (which is better than it not being), it does create an odd situation of only being able to use half of a timetable. I wonder if there are any other examples of this anywhere?

On coordination: I'm not sure what the thinking would be behind aligning the eastbound timetable only between Heddon-Newcastle. I'd say it's more of a coincidence than anything that it's aligned, and that the reason it's not aligned out of Hexham is to reduce the amount of waste in the duties. That of course doesn't help the customer.

I don't believe the X85 is a victim of the X9/X10 coaches not working, but at the same time, I don't think it would be inaccurate to suggest it's been some of he decision behind the downgrade from Xlines and 'luxury state-of-the-art vehicles'. The coaches being removed presented an issue of what is suitable to replace them with, and that was probably the most sensible out of the limited options available; and of course the absence of a money tree.

(31 Jan 2022, 12:50 am)Ambassador wrote An enjoyable read as ever. I think to an extent the improvements on the Tyne Valley 
line will have also impacted the X85, trains will always outrank the bus in terms of preference for a leisure commuter.

You raise a good point on the effectiveness of branding. You look at the profitable routes across the region like the 39/40, 21 etc they all pass major population centres but they are all historic, they make money in spite of the bus companies input not because of it. Nobody boards the 21 because it has a table with a checkers board, it’s nonsense. The tables are a hindrance. 

I think at some point we’ll move away from nonsense like tables and focus on what matters. Pricing, convenience and reliability…I can see it on a generic Ray Stenning branding now.

Thanks! I rarely use the train on that line, so probably not the best person to comment on it, but I had looked into the figures between Hexham and Newcastle from the ORR's 2020/21 estimates. Most of the line appears to have taken a beating, with Hexham itself being down around 80% of 2019/20 levels. The data published at the end of the year, subject to us not having further lockdowns or restrictions imposed, will make very interesting reading. 

The 39/40 and 21 are good examples as their product offering could not be more chalk and cheese in comparison. Similar frequency, similar pricing, but arguably the 39/40 is a no-frills product compared to a feature rich Go North East offering on the 21. I wonder if anyone has independently studied which offering is attracting or deterring customers? Have customers ever been asked? I don't think I've ever seen a Transport Focus survey that has asked me if the tables are of an adequate size, or whether there's a cup holder for my drink.

I'm not completely against branding, and I think it some limited scope for use, but the effectiveness of route branding (including 'premium offerings') really needs to be a focus of conversation in the industry if it's not already. I'd suggest that conversation is without those who have a vested interest in selling their designs. The amount of hot air on Twitter is nauseating at times, and I worry that people don't look beyond this for that evidence.

(31 Jan 2022, 7:02 am)DeltaMan wrote I think the issue with the X85 is quite straightforward and has nothing to do with branding, the timetable or any of the creature comforts onboard.

GNE ordered new buses in good faith before covid, then the pandmic hit and then the buses arrived for the X85. New buses + improved rail offer + falling passenger number probably meant the numbers didn't stack up to keep new buses on there. Repayments for vehicles didn't stop during covid after all.

Remember you usually put new buses on your busiest routes due to the higher route costings.

The usage figures on the railway between Hexham and Newcastle would suggest the opposite. An almost 80% decrease in passengers in the last ORR report.

Repayments of vehicles didn't stop during COVID, but nor did the concessionary travel rebate. It was still paid out to operators at 2019 passenger levels, in line with Government guidance. There's no denial that passenger numbers have dropped, but as I wrote in my post "If we do all of the above to encourage people to make a modal shift onto buses, you have to question what doing the opposite achieves". 

What is the short, medium and long term plan for those routes, now that they have been downgraded and removed from Xlines... is it managed decline and an acceptance that rail is king?

(31 Jan 2022, 8:05 am)xpm wrote a good round up of the issues there.

when the old Sunday service used to run in the days of darts, it was simply a feeder service for the the 74a service, although often did pick up a fair number of people through the villages and through throckley/Lemington.

the 9.30/10.30 ish buses out of Hexham pre pandemic most days would often be full depending on who got through Hexham first - in the days of the scanias there was little passenger loyalty - just whatever turned up first for most twirlies, although it did have many regulars and regular season ticket holders.  Fast forward to when the bus station moved location, there was initially a big drop off because twirlies didn’t want to have to walk to the ‘new’ bus station.  Combine this and turnover of drivers periodically, and problems with ticket acceptance, timetable changes etc led to gne losing almost all of their business passengers to the Arriva x85 at the time, despite them running anything that happened to be spare in the garage that day.

ENCTS passengers were not overly keen when the new citaros came into service as despite their refurb, their seats were rock hard and uncomfortable for most.  Add to this serious reliability issues with the third party eminox system which resulted in the buses derating frequently in service.

 the encts never, and still have not returned in anything like the numbers they used too - particularly for the 9.30/10.30 busy journeys.  There also isn’t the same level of tourist traffic that used it as a feeder to get the ad122 bus either, even though this year they dropped the tickets finally to a sensible level.  The other variable is turnover of drivers.  There are some excellent drivers at Hexham depot, but when you start to have new drivers on the route, particularly inexperienced drivers.  It’s a tight route both in terms of time and width of road and margin for error is very small.  Passengers on the route for the most part are quite canny but don’t tolerate poor service or tardiness if there’s another option.

Apart from morning and afternoon peaks solo would be fine and easier to operate on these routes.

I was really surprised at the drop in passenger numbers. I had only used the E400s twice in service last year and both times carried both loads, but a couple of times since the changes were announced, I've observed buses in and out of Newcastle on the X84/X85 and it's not been good.

I think there still is (and again this raises further questions on branding) an absence of loyalty to any one operator or service. Those with ENCTS passes will simply get the first bus that arrives and I don't think you'll ever change that attitude, so you're left relying on your commercial customers.

I had noticed when I was out on the buses last week, the the 09.30 journeys are still very much hit and miss, when in the past you'd have queues at most bus stops waiting for the ENCTS passes to allow travel. An X1 I used was absolutely rammed with them, whereas on the other hand I had a 4 the next morning to myself.