(24 May 2026, 2:44 pm)L469 YVK wrote I do wonder of the 2018/19 StreetDeck order was sanctioned under Kevin Carr or Martijn Gilbert? Given as people said Martijn had a preference for ADL.

Were the 31x StreetDecks originally ordered (unknowingly) for the 56 & 309/310 and then changed for Durham & Derwentside so that the routes could be marketed as having 'new' XLines buses? The numbers compared to the PVR's for the 56 & 309/310 at the time did add up - and both routes were previously targetted for fuel saving measures including the GKN flywheel trials.

I don't think Gilbert would of ordered the Streetdecks. I think he mainly wanted the ADLs given that from 2019 Go North East had there first 2 batches of ADL Products and that being the Enviro 200MMCs for the 97 and the Enviro 400MMCs for the X30 then obviously the year after the Enviro 400MMCs for the Dark Green & Orange X-Lines and then I guess the end of his journey at Go North East was the Second Hand Enviro 400s.

For the Streetdecks I actually don't know because even when the Derwentside routes gained the "X" prefix for the 15/15A/45/46/47 the 45/46/47 were all being reffered as the "Red Kite X45" for example on the Next Stop Systems until the next year same scenario for the already X prefix X70 and X71, they were being referred as the "Toon Link X70" on the Next Stop Announcements as the routes started to have their Next Stop Announcements working
Go North East did say they were changed for X-Lines here in this news archive https://newsroom.gonortheast.co.uk/news/...uly-373932

Someone will probably know better.

Just a quick edit whilst looking at the archives. It does seem they wanted something to launch in September 2019 here: https://newsroom.gonortheast.co.uk/news/...dot-373083

Around the same time I think it was that Wrightbus went into Administration