About the 36/42 merge, good idea but it wont happen, when the 139/140 merged with the 135/136 to make 29/29A/39/39A series going across the city, there were delays in the service by hold ups from the north of Sunderland and South of Sunderland. same goes as the 26/26A/36/36A Pennywell to Heworth and the service had to be split as hold ups on Chester Road and Heworth area.
I used to be in regular contact with the late Peter Huntley (MD of GNE) through email and i use to bounce suggestions to him and he used to tell me what was going to happen with the bus services for that area.
One of the service changes that was going to happen was merge the 39 with the 42 but only if the Sunderland Council would put in a bus link in at Silksworth terminus to Doxford Park Mill Hill, But the Council decide against doing the bus link so the merge didnt happen.
Secondly he mentioned to me just before he left the MD post at GNE that he was planning to run an express service between Sunderland and Peterlee, but this never got off the ground as the next MD came in and shelved it. And l thought that there were going to extend the X3 from Sunderland to Peterlee.
About the X9/X10 services, GNE wont do anything to these services as its already on tight times and the A19 history of holds ups,closed in sections and alot of accidents.
When GNE took over bus services of Jayline, GNE did extend the 211 from Peterlee to Sunderland, so the route was from Middlesbrough to Sunderland, but didnt really pick up passengers as it was mostly on the A19 after Ryhope.
When Durham County Council did there cutting back on spending on local bus services, GNE was going to lose all the East Durham services that there do secured by DCC to independant operators (Scarlet Band) and to Arriva, So GNE has taken on all the East Durham Branded services commercially so there dont lose them, But DCC told GNE that there have to maintain the destinations and early morning times of the timetables. In the past Arriva has asked GNE that there are wanting to take the contract off them to run it themselves, but ive always said that if Arriva did the services in the first place but decide not to run them and tried to run them with taxpayers money, When Arriva closed down the depot at Peterlee, l was hoping that there would take there bus services with them as passengers in peterlee were fedup with non running bus services and there wanting GNE buses in the estates, i asked the late Peter Huntley about taking on the depot and run the bus services in East Durham area, the reply l got back was that there were not interested in purchasing the Arriva Peterlee depot and there were going to wait and see what the downfall will be like with Arriva bus services, i mentioned to Peter Huntley that if GNE take on the depot instead of using a DCC East Durham Community yard, then GNE could run there East Durham Branded bus services and also could run the X9/X10 fleet and the Drifters 60/61 from there which will free up space at Gateshead and Deptford, But GNE decided not to and mentioned that the maintenace for the East Durham branded services woud be held at Deptford.
When the late Peter Huntley took the MD job at GNE he would of purchased Stagecoach Darlington but was too late as Stagecoach and Arriva shook hands on the deal, he also enquired about the availability of Stagcoach South Shields and Stagecoach Hartlepool, Stagecoach was in the 50/50 mind about South shields but then decided not to. and he was turned down flat about Stagecoach Hartlepool at least 2 times. You would of thought that Stagecoach Hartlepool would have annual turnover less than Stagecoach Darlington. Im surprised that Stagecoach hasnt started to run a service between Sunderland and Hartlepool, Stagecoach Hartlepool must be making profit as other bus operators only do services from outer area direct to Hartlepool centre.
RE: Service Suggestions