(27 Mar 2014, 2:52 pm)robisdave wrote Apologies for the quips people but interesting to read just what is happening and what it takes to deliver these services, I'm sure people are going to be impressed, just hope that the planners have done what I talked about earlier and provided realistic timetables / running times for these services.

If anything the running times allow a bit of slack. I don't know what the X4 is like as I don't do them but the times beyond Loftus haven't changed and they were really slack when we went to Whitby! The problems are more down to Redcar's reliability engineering wise than timekeeping. Their drivers make the best of a bad job and I really feel for them as it must be awful trying to keep going sometimes!

The 5/5A have more than enough time too, especially up the top end from Guisborough through to Brotton, Loftus and Easington. Now Stockton are running the whole lot (almost) it is really starting to take off too, I was amazed at the load I had on the 0610 from Easington this morning, almost a full bus by Middlesbrough! Wasn't expecting that...

Poor Whitby struggled on with a terrible allocation from Redcar and did as best as they could in the situation they found themselves. To be fair they were usually pretty good on the 5s, even if some of the vehicles were questionable (MPDs were regular...).

The vehicles are due to be delivered from July onwards so I'd say its quite likely that the launches will be more towards September. There is a specific team launching all of the Sapphire services around the UK I am told, but I don't really know what they do exactly. I am guessing help with marketing and things like that, as well as the actual physical launches. As I said there are 11 to be done around the UK including the 3 here in the North East.