(8 hours ago)peter wrote But that's in essence what all the X-Lines and most of remaining branded routes are - interurban routes between Newcastle, Durham, Sunderland and other key population centres. It's like the difference between Transpennine Express and Northern. 

The X1 and 4 the do different things, the 4 while more strategic than a local service weaves around different places, the X1 pretty much follows a straight line and is 'express' for about half of the route. 

There's no way they can refurbish everything tho - there will always be some routes that don't make as much money and thus don't receive the newest vehicles. Unless you replace every vehicle in the fleet all at once there will always be an oldest bus in the fleet and it has to do something (excluding scholars). 

If the interurban routes are more profitable, get the newer vehicles and are perhaps more-so competing against the private car then I find no issue trying to shout about it. 

The new streetdecks on the X1 or X45 being in a 'standard GNE livery' works both ways. Because they look exactly the same as every other GNE bus, if the last decker you happened to go on in that livery was an ex-London shed, you're gonna think well what's the difference I'm not getting on that bus either. In an ideal world there wouldn't be any sheds, but are you gonna refurb a 15-year old decker for say the 643/644, no, it's still a business at the end of the day and there's no business case for that - those local or more 'socially necessary' services that are less profitable are just that, less profitable, and are always gonna run with the oldest or less high-quality stock. Alternatively if you do find yourself on a GNE livery X1 then you might think oh wow every red GNE bus is this good not just the gold X-Line ones - but if they're no more attractive or enticing than your car or any other GNE bus why would you be drawn to get out your car and on it in the first place.

For people who have no other option but to use the bus, all this X-Lines branding and fancy features means nothing really - it's a bonus and a nice to have that your journey is more pleasant, but if you need to use that service regardless the operator could send anything and it wouldn't really matter you'd have to put up with it (within reason of course to the point where they don't force you off the bus and in your car) - but fundamentally it's less about retaining existing patronage, the X-Lines initiative is more of a marketing exercise to increase passenger numbers, by promoting it is a premium service on longer distance journeys. I think if they had been more precise with its execution it could have been a bigger success.

Aye no arguments about refurbishing really old stuff, but there's a lot of the fleet which I'd argue is up for it. 

Like you could make the case the 15/16/66/17 Plate Streetlite's could get done, all the Streetdeck's including the 70 Plates and then the E400MMC's aswell. You've done the vast majority of the fleet then and the ones which haven't been done will likely be going out of service before long then anyway.

If you don't change the interior (again) then you remove the tiers. Wellglade down in the Derby area is really good for this 

Personally if I was GoNorthEast, I'd keep the new livery which is used on the 75 Plates and only repaint any vehicles which have had a full refurbishment into it and start transforming the existing fleet. The first vehicles being the ex Angel deckers, and anything currently X Lines since like you said they're the important routes. Then move onto stuff like the 20 generally moving over the fleet. I understand it'd take a few years to do but that's life. 

GoNorthEast ditching the brands is new though, this is a company that's had a million brands so to a punter the X Lines - oh another one...?

What they shouldn't do (which they will do) is move the Angels and X1 Streetdeck's straight onto whatever they are going on as they're just 'old castoffs'. With a proper refurbishment, they could be 'new' buses.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/channel4sq...6227882341 - example of a Wellglade vehicle btw, looks pretty brand new today and it's 17 year old. The changing of headrests to suit the routes is a clever little move aswell as it's quite a cheap change and makes them a bit personalised imo.

Edit: Just to add same discussion for the London stock; they only look crap because they're not refurbished. Compare them to say Wright B7TL's which Arriva had and no-one could tell the difference as they had a full refurb. There's nothing wrong with London stock, it's just when it comes with blue lighting and GoAhead London interior where it's obvious.