(15 Feb 2025, 9:36 am)PH - BQA wrote The X30 will be interworking with the X20 I believe, so it’s an additional 2 on the PVR for Ashington. There will be vehicle movements ahead of these service changes, as the 4x Ashington 43 boards are moving across to Blyth ahead of the services converting to electric operation.
The extra bus on the X18 on a Saturday will be fine as there’s a reduced PVR at Ashington anyway on a Saturday with the X21/22/35 being every 30 mins. In the summer they’ll essentially use what is currently the school bus (although that’ll be used elsewhere, and a Pulsar will be sent for the X18…).
I believe the X20 was meant to be getting significantly retimed to improve punctuality too, which is allowed for by the interworking with the X30, but this has been omitted from the service update.
Just on the vehicle front, I believe Ashington currently have 1574, 1575, 1576, 7529, 7545, and 7547 off with either major unit failures or accident damage. You’d imagine at least some of those would be back by the time these changes come into effect.
Yeah that makes sense was wondering what the X30 was interworking with since it had 20 minutes plus in Haymarket which is less than ideal as an understatement.
I suppose if Ashington is running it then they have gained a few extra Pulsars in recent times aswell with 1404 staying now and the extra Pulsar from Merseyside since they only replaced 3 Solo's when they came - whether the last 2 actually get withdrawn, who knows. Mind I assume 1404 is on the dead list aswell currently.
It'll be interesting to see what goes to Blyth as in theory it should be 7557/8/60/62 but they're complete crocks as an understatement which won't help the problems at Blyth if the electrics aren't due imminitely.