(3 hours ago)Aaron21 wrote Don't worry. He will move onto the Coast road & how the B9TL Gemini should move or the 22 should go to Hadrian Park
Only reason I'm suggesting the Angel StreetDecks could end up on the Cobalts (and even the 56 to balance it out) is because of previous attempts back in 2014/15 to retrofit GKN flywheels on 6104 & 6085 as a trial in order to save fuel.
The 307 & 309 are not hard routes and the fuel savings over a fuel hungry B9TL would be quite decent, not forgetting commonality at Percy Main also having the NT Rockets & Coaster StreetLites.
The whole argument is that Arriva Northumbria have used the E400 Classic and E400MMC on arguably challenging work and bar 7501-06 which were ruined through poor maintenance (same issue which GNE are having), the rest have been fairly good.
From a maintenance and engineering perspective, surely it would make far more sense to only have 4x boards that need a low height decker as opposed to 12x and leaving engineering under pressure to send vehicles out that might be legal, but not 100% fit state! If 13x boards were able to be worked by a full height decker.....then it's a hell of a lot less stress and pressure on engineering as they can just allocate an ex GAG/London B9TL or E400 Classic instead of racing around trying to allocate whatever E400MMC is sitting around or having to pull one off the X45 or having to scramble for an E200MMC / StreetLite if the above fails!
Likewise, Riverside would have the choice of 15x deckers to use on the X10/X21 and could rotate them accordingly.