(03 Apr 2022, 7:45 pm)Adrian wrote Evening 50s from Chester-le-Street to Washington (and beyond) are timed at xx.45 and the 8 to Washington (and on to Sunderland) is xx.49You cannot inter-time services with uneven round trip times unless you are prepared to have a load of inefficiency.
Being a cynic, I'd suggest we'll sooner or later see one of the two axed 'due to low use', despite them having more of a fighting chance if more evenly spread across the clock-face.
The round trip running times from Chester to South Shields and Chester to Sunderland means you cannot coordinate them between Washington and Chester unless you have one of the buses sitting at either Sunderland or South Shields for half an hour.