(27 Aug 2023, 9:50 am)L469 YVK wrote Still going to be impacted regardless whether there's new vehicles. X21 will suffer especially around the Bedlington Station area.....but if Arriva could somehow work out how to avoid Nedderton, they could still win passengers heading to Gosforth and the more Northernly parts of the City Centre around Haymarket as Central Station will be at least a 15 minute walk.
Getting back to topic......as for the X93/X94 though, it's a hard one to invest due to the seasonal nature of the route. Best time to have taken the B9TLs off would've been around 2020/21 when they still would've served some purpose and been fairly good on the X14/X20.
Unless Arriva are waiting to see how things play out at Blyth and if can still make money despite the ABTRL, maybe a large StreetDeck order with some 6-Cylinder examples thrown in for the X93/X94.
Why would they avoid Nedderton, and why would that make it more appealing than the train to those from Bedlington Station?
I don't see a StreetDeck order, they've tried it on the X93 before and it didn't end well. The MMCs by all accounts have performed well on there this summer, and they already have around 30 in the fleet so that would be a far more sensible purchase in my view.