(17 Apr 2014, 9:19 pm)tyresmoke wrote The single fares outside of town/city areas are always more expensive, for example once we get into North Yorkshire or County Durham, the fares go up rapidly. Middlesbrough-Sedgefield if I remember right is £5.20 single for example, compared to Middlesbrough-Easington for just £3.60 - so £5 RGC-Morpeth wouldn't surprise me. At least you can still get step entrance haulage on long runs up there for a few more months with 7482/3 staying!

The ERG machines have tons of "hot keys" across the bottom which can be set up according to different needs - Stagecoach had them with Megarider, Tripper etc, basically saves you going through the menus, a quicker way to issue the heavily used tickets. Interesting to hear GNE have a passenger count (on the main screen?) - I'm guessing it just counts hoardings though so part way through the route it could show 95 but say 50 people have alighted since the start of the trip, then only 45 would remain on board.

I noticed when I asked for a £5 Arriva Day Ticket on the 306 a few months ago, when I was going up to Alnwick, it took ages for the driver to find it, whereas on Go North East buses I normally get my ticket instantly, so there is one good thing about ERG machines. However, I do like Arriva's Wayfarer 200 machines because they update the location automatically, and this will avoid people been wrongly charged, or tickets not being accepted on smartcards, like some members brought up a few weeks ago.

And yeah, brilliant news about 7482/7483 statying, but they'll probably only be found on the 20/X20, 30 and 34 because of the ''Low Floor Guarantee'' they have on some Ashington services. Regarding Ashington depot, is it likely the 57/57A will receive newer buses this year? Even though the current MPD's used on the service are well suited due to the comfortable seating, I think it could do with bigger buses, especially due to the fact it interworks with the X14. However, to be fair, I can only see it getting Solos if it does get upgraded, and it does only really get standees from Seaton Deleval area to Cramlington, and sometimes around Whitley Bay-Earsdon. Morpeth-Cramlington has decent loads, but Cramlington-Ashington normally doesn't.