(20 Feb 2014, 8:18 pm)Dan wrote Now that's more realistic.
When you consider the recent reliability, things are only going to get worse. It may not be every journey, but it's enough to have been noticed by both the enthusiast scene and customers.
How often in the past have we seen Olympians allocated? How often recently have we seen Highwaymans allocated? I'd say there has been at least three or four days this month alone where a Highwayman has been allocated to the Tyne Tees Xpress...
We've discussed the problems with coaches in the past though. For some (albeit a minority), the Tyne Tees Xpress is a local service. Coaches just aren't convenient for that type of work. The cost of coaches, as well as where they'd end up should the Tyne Tees Xpress ever justify yet another upgrade, is also something that is perhaps off-putting.
It's funny, because the same debate was had on another forum and the end result was that Coaches can be used on local work (look at the Scottish Citylink routes, especially those services into Fort William to Glasgow/Inverness), although I would argue that the X9/X10 aren't strictly local services, more limited stop express. Very similar to Stagecoach Fife's X8/X24/X26/X27 from Fife into Glasgow and X52/X54/X58/X59/X60 into Edinburgh which use Coaches (and trust me, the X54 uses B7R/Profiles and does act in places as a local service).