(16 Nov 2022, 10:26 pm)Storx wrote It's not that far from Blyth to Cramlington though, it's no further than some of Stockton's routes based at Middlesbrough for example or most of Redcar's routes.

They don't need anymore Pulsar's. There's already about 5 09 plates in a spare role as they've got nothing to do with them, some at Stockton and Redcar currently.

You're ignoring one big thing here and that's the effect it will have on current services. The 52 might not be the busiest route in the world just to pick one, but 10 of the semi frequent passengers might be people with hospital appointments at the Freeman who use the X10 twice a week aswell. Take away that hospital appointment and they end up driving there then why bother using the X10 and it will happen. Some of the obvious ones are below.

Cramlington to Newcastle, Blyth, Morpeth, Ashington, Killingworth, Freeman, North Shields, Benton, Four Lane Ends
Whitley Bay to Newcastle, Blyth, Cramlington, North Shields, Killingworth, Cobalt, Benton, Forest Hall, Shiremoor, Gosforth
North Shields to Newcastle, Whitley Bay, Cramlington, Killingworth, Cobalt, Forest Hall, Shiremoor, Benton


Not everyone wants to go to Newcastle (believe it or not). The 52 and 53 are needed in particular. The 51, 54 and 55 are more questionable and I wouldn't be surprised to see changes at some point on those 3 but they're needed in some form and the 3 which are likely struggling the worst hence the hard cuts.

The 43(too many buses)/X10/X11 duplications and 52/X8 duplications are the bigger problems imo and having Blyth running the 43 when Morpeth is already a hub where it serves for Ashington doesn't make sense either so wouldn't be surprised to see a change there either.

It's not to say that the 52 and 53 are bad routes. But with Arriva's business strategy and a focus on Northumberland, can they viably keep the services going taking everything into account when another operator (SCNE, GNE, GCT etc) would be in a better place to pick up a tender with some commercial risk (like the 19 and 317) from Nexus.