(20 Feb 2022, 8:30 am)Storx wrote Don't believe so, it never made sense anyway.



Whatever happens though Blyth needs more Decker's for the X7/X8/X9/X10/X11/306/308 as they have to be all Decker operated when the depot changes come around as there's no space for singles at the new Blyth depot. Only 15 spots and they're pretty much guaranteed to be the Streetlite's for the 52/53/54 which are supposedly moving across.



If I had to make a guess though I'd guess

7x - 306 (Reduced to every 20 minutes)

7628 - 7635 - 308 (Also reduced to every 20 minutes)

Would Arriva not want to use the same vehicle type on the 306 & 308 though? As it stands, you'd be correct if they remained standalone. The 308 for timekeeping and suitable layovers would need a PVR of 8 and the 306 would need a PVR of 7.

A PVR drop from 18 to 15 vehicles is less than 20%. Now the 308 could 'just' run on a PVR of 7 if the Haymarket layover was reduced to 7 minutes, giving an extra minute to Blyth increasing it to 4 minutes. But if they wanted to make bigger savings whilst keeping suitable layovers, they'd need to eventually pull the 306 out Battle Hill Drive and keep both on the Coast Road. Interworking on a PVR of 14, they'd have the following layovers compared to current Monday-Friday frequency:

- Haymarket = 8 minutes (same as 308 currently gets and an extra minute for 306)
- Whitley Bay (306) = 5 minutes (same as current half-hourly 306 runs to Whitley Bay get)
- Blyth (308) = 13 minutes (same as 308 currently gets)

Not forgetting that if the 308 ran standalone with a PVR of 8 and didn't interwork with the 306, a round trip would be 2hr 40m. That would limit driving hours as 2x round trips would push it close to the 5hr 30m limit. Interworking the 306 & 308 with the 306 taken out of Battle Hill but still serving Whitley Bay would be a 4hr 40m round trip.

And for the work that the 306 & 308 do, E400MMCs are too heavy duty. StreetDecks would be more than ample.