(Yesterday, 9:38 am)Busadvocate wrote I think the main problem is that the sort of service that you are envisaging just isn't viable as commercial services, otherwise they would be running now.

Tyresmoke:
You are assuming that the south end of the X10 would be a loss-maker. But unless GNE is being daft (which I doubt), the X10 must be generating revenue that makes it at least cover its costs plus a modest profit, on the basis of passenger fares and ENCTS reimbursement etc etc. All that revenue remains there in the future, and so this is a potential net fund-generating service for the franchised world.
We need to adjust from the sense of publicly secured services always being loss-makers; designing the franchised network will require a good sense of what is financially viable.

(And I'm pretty sure there are Peterlee people using X10 to travel to/from Teesside...)

I mean it’s interesting you say that because when was the last time a service like this was properly tried, I think you have to go back to 2002 when the X99 still ran, so nobody could say if it would be a success because nobody has tried doing new services for well over a decade.