(22 Aug 2022, 8:24 pm)toward6931 wrote no I'm not saying it has to be an ALX, what I mean is there is a growing shortage of vehicles. the fact that the MMCs get pulled away regularly for events like Cheltenham and the commonwealth games. there is an increasingly older fleet of single decker's to rely on and there is also a problematic fleet of E200s.

you've got vehicles getting pulled out of paintshops incomplete because there isn't any spares. high volume routes like the 62/63 getting allocated an 39xxx E200 because there isn't a spare vehicle. after walkergates 19439 I believe it was caught fire nothing replaced it as far as I know, all I'm saying is until either new deliveries or a decent cascade of vehicles happens what is the harm in acquiring a stopgap,

in this hypothetical case if they are in reasonable working order 3 tridents. on paper you could send one of them to Sunderland so that one E400 could go back to walkergate to cover 19439 and 2 to Stockton to allow 2 ALX300s to go to hartlepool to alleviate vehicle problems there.

I would personally love to see 30 plus single and double deck MMCs turn up in the north east but its not looking hopeful so realistically this could be a situation that does occur (maybe newer vehicles)

Special events aside, I'm not convinced there is a vehicle shortage.  Sunderland are still sat on a load of spares since the PVR reduction there.  Things are always going to be tight when large numbers are off for a few days/weeks on events work but they aren't going to fund an increased spares % just for that.  The issues with the MAN 14.240s is seemingly being addressed by acquiring Darts, which is likely to be the route they continue down as it will be far more economical running an 06 plate dart than an 06 plate decker.  When we talk about vehicles getting pulled out of the paintshop half done, let's remember that was one vehicle, which had incompletely applied promotional livery - not a regular occurrence and arguably with better planning they shouldn't have been trying to do it when a load of the fleet were off to Brum...