(17 Sep 2023, 5:58 pm)mb134 wrote The X9 would be horrendous if you were to do that to it, it's already the longest route from Blyth to Cramlington out of the current express routes. 

Similarly with the X10/11, you then unbalance the interworking pattern on those and you probably push the demand to the one which remains an express. It would also reduce capacity on the 43/X10/11 to Newcastle during the peaks, which I don't think they could cope with at present. 

Fiddling with the X7 is off the table, nothing else can serve Seghill, Seaton Delaval, Seaton Sluice, New Hartley easily. Similarly with the X8, nothing can easily be diverted to serve South Beach (you can't send an X10/11 without killing the service through Newsham), or High Pit. With both routes, no other route can be easily diverted to serve Burradon or Quorum.

Aye totally agreed, wasn't a suggestion tbh, was more the only thing that's possible at all.

Not sure what loadings are like on them but the best thing you could probably do is drop the 43/44/45 back down to every 10 minutes combined with the X30 scrapped. Not sure how doable that would be though.

Hopefully they can sort the driver issue out though to be honest, probably the easier thing to do.