(26 Sep 2025, 10:34 am)PH - BQA wrote Why would Arriva care about what GNE were using for their services? There has been a lot of investment in electric by Arriva recently, and I don't think it is all linked to bids.
Even if they did get funding, why would it need to be a joint bid?
As much as there is a partnership in the scheduling and ticketing, even now there is a very different approach to vehicle allocation from each company - so I don't see why there'd need to be alignment on that.
Personally I'd be surprised if they did the 306/308. The 308 is a strong route, no question of a doubt, but the 306 isn't a route which they've regularly invested in over the years.
The X7/X8/X10/X11 imo would be the better routes considering they've had nothing since 2009/11 now, with housing expansion all over the place (Cramlington / Killingworth / South Blyth) plus the trains competing against them - it probably would be sensible to do something to actually fight back a bit as a battered DB300 isn't exactly a big selling point really.
It's generally how those routes have been invested in, for at least 30 years, with the Scania's in 1996/97 - unsure before that.