(29 Dec 2022, 8:47 pm)toward6931 wrote hopefully with the new 400MMCs deliveries next year SNE can scale up some services and depots capacity. i am going to go through some ideas i have about individual depots as i think its hard hard to go through all SNE depots in a detailed way in one post

i used to know walkergate and slatyford services well having worked there, obviously things have changed in a decade so apologies if im a bit out of date, but i think walkergate needs to regain some of the lost deckers there , i think 4 E200s are sufficient for walkergate on the 317, 3 vehicles in use and 1 spare, i believe the following E200s are allocated to walker and in my opinion is double the amount they should have
36467
36468
36960
36961
36962
36963
36964

as for single decks i believe they currently have the following, when i used to work there i think they had 5 or 6 and that was (if memory serves correctly) for if (could be wrong here) route 22 i think it was had diversions, especially after the deroofing  incidents
22065
22341
22347
22412
22437
24109
27157
27158
27723
27724
27725
27736
27739

as there is an increased need for double decks in SNE i would be content to keep the number of full size single decks around the 8 mark at walkergate to mitigate shortages, therefore i would suggest that the E300s stay for the time being until either replaced by newer models but the ALXs ideally need to go for CAZ purposes.

ideally if walkergate could snag around 30 newer double deck vehicles the could then lose the 4 E200s, the 5ALXs and then keeping 1of these newer double deck as a spare, cascade 20 of its eldest vehicles to elsewhere in the north east area, i will cover that in a later post

27736/39 are just loans replacing 10633/7 which went to Sunderland but 10637 and 27739 have already returned back to their own depots. Also the PVR of the 317 is 5 for the E200s. Other than the E200s I do agree Walkergate should be fully double decker, hopefully the new E400MMCs that are due will replace single deckers across all the depots as Sunderland and Stockton could definitely do with a couple of extra deckers