(21 Aug 2022, 9:20 am)Storx wrote Might sound harsh but I don't know what the numbers are but if it's running empty 9/10 of the time, I'd rather my council tax was being paid somewhere more useful than running a bus service carrying fresh air in the middle of nowhere.
Heck it's probably cheaper to give tokens to the few villages along there which gives them a free taxi back from Haltwhistle when they need it so they can go whenever they want.
and that is exactly the problem - half the time it is completely empty, might take an odd one or two from Alston to halty and back, a couple from Halton Lea Gate, and someone from Slaggy, but that's about it. It could be a completely soul destroying duty ten and a half hours of solitude - worse in the winter when the weather came in - running about in bad conditions for no benefit for anyone - that triip back across Alston Moor and Whitfield could be long and hairy.
From what I understand it's a Beechings route - so there's always going to be some sort of service on there with a minimum number of journeys. Prior to the most recent changes most people agreed the direction of travel at the time was the wrong way around - so it should have been going to Alston when it was coming from there - and vice-versa.
In latter years the last 185 was always empty both ways, and more often than not asides from tourist season you could often carry less than half a dozen people a day on all of the 185 trips.
681 was sometimes a little busier depending on whether an odd group of teenagers wanted to go to Halty to generally make a nuisance of themselves around the train station, but again more often than not it was an odd person here and there that were regulars - and by regular that was more often than not, once a week.