(11 May 2014, 8:16 pm)GMitchelhill wrote As mentioned 1009 has a number of roles.
Usually it's based at Percy Main to enable it to shuttle Staff between the depot and the office / rest room in North Shields. Plus it's usually used as the Staff bus early in the morning or late at night.
When required, it is used by the driving school to evaluate the drivers in seeing how well they drive a vehicle larger then a car. This was previously done by Ford Transit 168 (https://www.flickr.com/photos/gjm-photog...5700098927) which was new to Go North East in 2008 replacing an older Ford Transit minibus (prob have a photo somewhere). However 168 was written off after an accident in 2010(?) and replaced by Sprinter 1009.
https://m.flickr.com/#/photos/busmanbuse...D_w_IS_all