(21 Apr 2014, 2:44 pm)G-CPTN wrote A while ago I was leaving Haltwhistle to travel to Corbridge and got a lift as far as Haydon Bridge.I was waiting for the bus to school one morning a few years ago (when they went via Gilsland and were coach-operated) to hear a neighbour shout to me that the bus had its hazards on just up the road.
Before Haydon Bridge we passed the Arriva 685 broken down in a layby.
No bus had arrived an hour later (it had crashed in Carlisle).
Eventually nearly two hours late the replacement for the broken-down 685 arrived, having been sent out from Carlisle to pick up the stranded passengers and convey them onwards.
Whereas previously Arriva would have 'serviced' from Hexham it now has to be Carlisle or Jesmond.
I did have to wait for the next one, and I seem to remember that it was Hexham-operated at the time. Only took around half an hour for the next one to come and replace it; but it would have been approximately one hour later should it have been Jesmond-run.
Stagecoach in Carlisle have, in the past, fixed knackered Arriva 685s (coaches, although they would probably do Omnicities now) with no real knowledge on them. They only do so because of the two companies sharing the operation of the 685s.
Doesn't really happen the other way round, say if a Stagecoach bus broke down in Newcastle, it would just go to Walkergate.
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