(09 Feb 2014, 10:32 am)Dan wrote At 8pm on a Saturday night, there are very few alternative methods...
Only one guy who had waited for over an hour gave up and went to get a pint instead, followed by a taxi.
My only alternative methods from Concord would have been to get to Shields to get a 35 home, or to the Galleries and then 2A/2C followed by any of the buses to get me back over the other side of the water. Either of those would have taken even longer than my hour-long delayed 56. There's also the element of, "If I leave, the bus will turn up" - if you've waited for 30 minutes or so and there's another bus due, why would you leave to get another bus which would take around 1hr + longer?
EDIT:
For reference -
1951 #4 to The Galleries (1958)
2005 #2C to Sunderland (2036)
2050 #9 to Stadium of Light Metro (Approx 2100)
Would have got me home 30 mins later as the connections weren't too bad. As Adam said though, there were delays to the 4 yesterday - I could have missed that connection and I would have been waiting around for 1hr 10m at The Galleries...
The 56 had already turned up before the 2002 #50A arrived, bound for Shields.
Could you have not made your way back to Heworth and picked up a bus there?
No idea of the times/frequency on a night from there like.
On a slightly different note, is this not a perfect example of what happens when a company consolidates several routes into one?
A delay somewhere on route, disrupts the service etc.
Whereas (harking back), issues in the past, could have let to you getting a bus which had a similar route, but avoided the area where problems were/had been occurring.