(23 Feb 2023, 11:28 pm)Drifter60 wrote The issue with these corridors is that operators don’t take on any thing that could be a risk. I’ve long thought Arriva could have routed maybe their 23 service via Seaham Harbour, yes you’d add some journey time but you’d open up new connections and particularly when lots of other services were cut back or axed all together. Offering direct buses between Hartlepool, Easington Colliery, Horden, Blackhall, Seaham and Seaham Train Station maybe too, before Horden opened that could have been an interesting connection to the rail line northbound. For Arriva they would even still have the 22 operating the ‘quick’ route too, for Peterlee to Sunderland A to B travellers, so I don’t see many negatives. Then coordination of the 22/61 timings could give an every 15 mins service Sunderland to Dalton Park.

But instead as no one likes any element of risk, we’re stuck with up to 14 buses per hour* at one point duplicating the exact same route from New Seaham to Sunderland via Ryhope and Grangetown - which is complete overkill. 

*currently 10 Mon-Fri

Arriva have already tried running a service round that part of Seaham, the X21 ran via Seaham and Spectrum Business Park and it never really took off, not helped by Go North East revising the X7 and introducing the X6 about a month after who provided a roughly half hourly link between Peterlee, Seaham & Sunderland vs Arriva's hourly X21, prior to that, for 2 years they had it go direct from Peterlee to Ryhope via the A19.

Perhaps as the 23 serves areas that the X21 and current X6 doesn't, maybe it would work but it would an already long journey, even longer (would also impact the interworking cycle for the 22/23/24).

Pygalls did briefly cover the suggested routing in part in the later days of the existence of their 230 service running direct from Hartlepool via Horden omitting Peterlee by changing the terminus to Seaham instead of Sunderland and also calling at Dalton Park but that didn't work out.