(16 Apr 2026, 6:05 am)Kimlfixit wrote Had to do a double take when I saw how small the vehicle is. Looking forward to my trips to the Metrocentre over Christmas....

Yeah its still silly that they chose the Middle Size spec that ADL offer for the E200EV's.
Seems like the always had a decent sized vehicle to cope with the Passenger levels back in the day.
This route has had Optare Deltas, Plaxton Prestiges, Wright Solars, Wright Solar Artics, Mercedes Citaro Artics, Streetlites, Eclipse 2's and the 200MMC's
Except for the Artics they all seemed the same size. Don't understand why they think getting a smaller spec is going to do anything great for this route. Especially when its been mentioned that the Weekend/Half Terms are going to have a LOT more people on the route and during the Christmas Season its not going to be able to cope.

Would love to think what was going through the Companies head placing the order for these.
They had put this in the News section for their website about the ADL's "Our new single-decker electric buses are electrifying our X66 service between Gateshead and the Metrocentre, which carried more than 900,000 passengers last year."
Seemed a lot of the time it was Double Deckers making the odd cameo on the X66 and towards the end of the Enviro 200MMC's on the route it seemed the Deckers were a lot more common.

All fine for the route being electrics since its a small route but its still the wrong bus choice imo