7489 has officially moved to the Driver Training Fleet and been renumbered
9995. Currently at Ashington depot.
Also all Optare Tempos (1307-1312)
have been repainted but have moved back to Arriva Yorkshire believed to be in January.

Another Darlington cascade - 1463 has moved back to Durham and is on the 43 today

(16 Feb 2018, 10:51 pm)RobinHood wrote Stockton should have dropped 1914 already, as that is not part of their official allocation

Stockton still only recieve Pulsars to replace 1916, 1917, 1920 and 1922.

1915 effectively drops out this weekend when the PVR of Service 27A/8 drops by 1.

So, come end of March any Cadets still running will not be retested.

1917 due off next week,

Are there any Renowns left in service?
Looking at fleet lists there looks to be 3 with 1 in service at Jesmond. Just wondering as I’ve been told the Arriva fleet list isn’t updated as much as GNE and SNE.

(17 Feb 2018, 3:56 pm)NewcastleOne wrote Are there any Renowns left in service?
Looking at fleet lists there looks to be 3 with 1 in service at Jesmond. Just wondering as I’ve been told the Arriva fleet list isn’t updated as much as GNE and SNE.

4512 is the 1 at Jesmond

(17 Feb 2018, 3:56 pm)NewcastleOne wrote Are there any Renowns left in service?
Looking at fleet lists there looks to be 3 with 1 in service at Jesmond. Just wondering as I’ve been told the Arriva fleet list isn’t updated as much as GNE and SNE.

There was some discussion covering this last month - 4512 is the only one still with the fleet, as the other two were sold to an operator in Hampshire some time back.  It seems that official data for Arriva can be a little tricky to obtain, hence why the fleet lists sometimes get a little out of step with reality .........

(17 Feb 2018, 9:50 pm)Ianthegoon wrote There was some discussion covering this last month - 4512 is the only one still with the fleet, as the other two were sold to an operator in Hampshire some time back.  It seems that official data for Arriva can be a little tricky to obtain, hence why the fleet lists sometimes get a little out of step with reality .........

However, lots of very easily attainable information is also not updated. 7808-10, for example, still being listed as in the Eco Green livery, 7489 is now an Ashington based driver trainer, yet is listed as a Redcar reserve. Most, if not all, of the Tempos have now been refurbished and returned to service in Yorkshire.

Great thank you. Maybe this could help update the fleet lists a bit.

(17 Feb 2018, 9:57 pm)mb134 wrote However, lots of very easily attainable information is also not updated. 7808-10, for example, still being listed as in the Eco Green livery, 7489 is now an Ashington based driver trainer, yet is listed as a Redcar reserve. Most, if not all, of the Tempos have now been refurbished and returned to service in Yorkshire.

You could always use the 'submit your news' feature on the site to submit this "very easily attainable information", but I suppose it is easier to just have a twist about it instead?

The UEC Newsletter gives details of allocations and branding changes etc.

---

(17 Feb 2018, 3:40 pm)Smarty93 wrote 1917 due off next week,

Should have retested that instead of 1759!

Not everyone has access, or wish to pay to access to the UEC newsletter, though.

My personal fleet list which I attached above, is gathered from internal news and enthusiast sightings, so is always up to date when I do get around to doing it. 

Changes to Stockton’s Sunday interworking

8 work as standalone
9s now work with the 17/29a/X12 - in that pattern

All of Stockton's 27-branded Pulsars are off today to be changed into 8s. Apart from 1456 which will gain the generic Frequenta branding like 1457-60 have.

(18 Feb 2018, 10:47 am)Adrian wrote You could always use the 'submit your news' feature on the site to submit this "very easily attainable information", but I suppose it is easier to just have a twist about it instead?

Had I known that was a feature, I would have.  

(18 Feb 2018, 5:01 pm)mb134 wrote Had I known that was a feature, I would have.  

Did you miss this post? I responded to you giving details of this feature just a few weeks ago, when you made a similar post commenting on the lack of updates to the Arriva North East fleet list.

This website and its many features are great free (openly available) resources, unlike some other similar resources which readers have to pay towards, but we can't always devote the time to keeping everything up to date. We developed the feature to allow news suggestions as myself and the other members of the moderation team all have full-time jobs and other things to keep us busy aside from this website (which let's not forget, is just a hobby for us!)

I'll look forward to seeing your news suggestions in future - whether the information is easily obtainable or not, every contribution will enable us to get our fleet lists up-to-date more quickly.

Bit of an odd sighting in Durham yesterday was Blyth based 1773, wonder why it was there for.


Sent from my iPhone 7+ using Tapatalk

It's not Blyth based, it's been at Durham for months...

(18 Feb 2018, 8:40 pm)TEN 6083 wrote

Bit of an odd sighting in Durham yesterday was Blyth based 1773, wonder why was there for.


Sent from my iPhone 7+ using Tapatalk

1773 has not been based at Blyth for a few months now. The original plan was for Durham's 2810 to transfer to Blyth and Blyth's 1791 to Durham in exchange. I believe that Durham found some problems with 1791 so 1773 transferred instead.

On a slightly different note, and perhaps something which will strike up some discussion, I travelled on a handful of Arriva buses yesterday and I found myself quite disappointed.

I made my way to Durham on a few Go North East services (56 to Concord, 50 to Framwellgate Moor, then X21 to Durham), deciding to jump off the X21 in Durham rather than continue to Bishop Auckland on the same bus. Instead I thought it'd be a good idea to go to Bishop Auckland by using the X46 to Crook with a connection to the X1 from there, to sample a few buses that I don't often get to travel on.

The first bus that arrived on the X46 was 7418. Internally the bus was quite well-presented - it wasn't the cleanest but my immediate perception wouldn't have been that it was a 13-year old bus. Externally the bus wasn't quite as good: the bus was dirty (somewhat understandable given the nature of the route), and the biggest eyesore for me was the lack of black masking at the bottom of the front destination display, meaning what is ordinarily hidden was all exposed and on show. The right hand side of the black masking was coming away which meant that part of the Wi-Fi symbol and 'W' in Wi-Fi was also missing.

My next bus was 1590. Immediately I noticed what seems to be common on Arriva North East's Streetlites: the chrome Wrightbus grille on the front of the bus was partially missing. A very little thing, and only us enthusiasts would ever notice it, but it seems to be quite common for this to be (partially) missing nowadays. Is there a reason for it? The Next Stop Announcements were so quiet they were barely audible (I have fairly good hearing and struggled to make out some of the announcements), and the power sockets didn't work. I didn't try the Wi-Fi but I was prompted to connect to it - so in terms of new technology on buses, the Wi-Fi probably would have been the only thing ticking the box for me.

In Bishop Auckland Bus Station, I spotted a brand new Streetlite. I wasn't quite sure what service the bus was going to be allocated to but suspected it was going to be a late-running 5A (which turned out to be true). The driver eventually came out of the canteen around 5 minutes after the service was due to depart, eventually leaving around 7 minutes late. The interior of 1604 was similar to what we usually see - the seats still showing the old Sapphire logo/colourscheme, but the cove panels had been given a makeover showing the new corporate light blue colour. These cove panels added quite a bit of colour to the bus which made for a more pleasant experience, but the designs looked amateurish, as if they had been quickly mocked up on Microsoft Paint, and I found the bottoms of the vinyls were peeling already (just a week or so after being put on!) The most disappointing and unprofessional thing to see, was the Next Stop Announcement monitor showing the black default "HANOVER DISPLAYS LTD" screen. Despite having been at Darlington for a fortnight or so before being pressed into service, Arriva clearly hadn't updated the Next Stop Announcement media at all, even just to show their own logo (if the media wasn't ready). Above the TFT monitor, a small section of the black masking was missing, so every time the bell was pressed, a red light was visible below the actual 'Stopping' sign. Again a very little thing, but feels like something that should have been spotted and fixed by Wrightbus while the bus was being prepared for service. Unlike a lot of enthusiasts, I don't think Wrightbus' range of buses are all that bad. They don't scream 'quality' but they're not as bad as they're made out to be, either. I must say that the stop/start technology on the Streetlites is a lot more noticeable and irritating than on the StreetDeck range. It was really starting to irritate me by the end of my journey, and I was glad to get off, but I suspect it's something we'll have to get used to going forward...

When I did get off, I noticed that the rear destination display was still set up to only show a route number on the rear. I'd noticed this last weekend too, but thought it would have been sorted by now (it's a quick fix!)... Clearly not. Something else that makes no difference to a 'normal' customer, but why bother spending the money on the full-size rear display, only to show a route number in the middle of it? Seems bizarre!

I jumped on another bus from Shildon to Newton Aycliffe after this. Didn't get any details other than it being a 61-reg Pulsar. Going back to the basics, I was surprisingly more impressed. The bus was really clean and tidy internally, and the only thing letting it down was a Next Stop Announcement system being fitted, but only showing a generic Arriva logo. I'd heard that the council contributed funding towards the fitting of Next Stop Announcements to Pulsars in Darlington, so quite disappointing to see that the system still doesn't work, after about a year(?) of the system being fitted.

In Newton Aycliffe, I got a lucky shot of an 'old' Sapphire Pulsar on the 7 with a 'new' Sapphire Streetlite on the 5. Was happy with the shot overall and although I still do prefer the older design, it did look quite dated compared to the new livery (which is starting to grow on me now - it looks quite modern and fresh). 1522 was another example of a bus with a missing chrome Wrightbus logo at the front.

My next ride was 4814, from Newton Aycliffe to Darlington. I noticed that the offside was still missing branding (which it has done for years now), and it still made reference to the long-since withdrawn 21 service between Darlington and Peterlee. The seats weren't very comfortable, but on a brighter note, the Next Stop Announcement system (fitted a year or two ago) was now working. There was no audio but the visuals were working spot on - complete with new Arriva logo etc.

Next up was a ride on the X67 to Stockton. A bus arrived on stand but the driver left it, going for his break. Another driver didn't emerge until 15 minutes after the bus was scheduled to depart. The driver started to load the bus with passengers, still showing "Not in Service" on the display, until intending passengers queried: "Are you the 66 or the 67?" The driver, with a rather poor attitude, grunted, "The X67" and didn't take too kindly to an elderly gentleman pointing out that he hadn't put the X67 on the display. At this point, the next X66 had arrived, in the form of 9/10 branded Optare Solo 2868, which would have departed a minute or two after my X67. Again, it may come as a surprise, but the Next Stop Announcements weren't working on the X67... Although this one did seem to be a Hanover issue with a faulty system, rather than Arriva just not bothering to programme anything.

After taking a few photos in Stockton, I had a ride on freshly-painted Centro 1924 next. It was allocated to the 15 service - pretty uncommon to see anything other than a Pulsar on there. The bus was running late, with the next 15 unloading passengers on the High Street immediately behind. But again, going back to the basics, what a well-presented bus! The light blue paintwork stands out really well in Stockton High Street against all of the other buses, and Arriva have done a great job on improving the interior too, with leather seats and a grey moquette used on the seat backs, covering the old grey plastic.

My final bus of the day was 1917. Due to be withdrawn in the imminent future, I was keen to secure one last ride on one of these Cadets. Taking the 'scenic' route to Middlesbrough on the 17A service, I was again impressed by the more basic bus. The interior was very smart (probably the best-presented bus of the day), and aside from the seats being quite uncomfortable with little padding, it was a really nice ride. At least the Wrightbus logo on this one can't fall off! 

All in all, it seemed like the modern features on Arriva's buses were letting them down. Other operators, in and out of the region, are just as bad when it comes to maintaining these new technologies, but it really did give a poor perception. Aiming to put any bias aside, I travelled north on the Go North East X9 service. The bus was clean externally and aside from a bit of litter upstairs (despite having bins near the tables... you can lead a horse to water, eh), it was a really pleasant passenger experience. Again the Volvo B5s get a lot of negativity in the enthusiast community, but I'd say that this round of buses on the X9/X10 is the best yet. Wi-Fi worked, Next Stop Announcements worked, the three-pin sockets worked (which did come as a surprise, admittedly), and I had plenty leg-room on my table seat... I'd go as far to suggest that it's probably one of the best experiences you'll get, travelling on a bus in the North East.

Arriva's Durham County fleet are very poorly presented, missing branding etc is supposed to be raised with the Marketing team via the "Publicity Champions" of whom are based at every depot, who, erm, clearly don't do what they're supposed to do.

The NSAs for the Sapphire 1/5/5A/12/19 are all set up, and were even loaded into the 13 reg Pulsars, why this never happened for the StreetLites, who knows.

The internal branding, is poor in my opinion, but the Arriva Brand Guidelines heavily restrict what the designers can and can't do, I've even attempted to mock branding up, but it's very hard to make anything look decent...! The internal branding was designed by the national Marketing team, so I kind of expected better to be honest.  

Something needs to be done, as there's room for improvements at both Northumbria and Durham County, with the latter with the most issues in regards to fleet presentation at present.

There really is no attention to detail across Arriva North East, and it really lets the company down.

As for GNE - I had 6309 on Tuesday, and it was absolutely disgusting inside, it clearly hadn't been cleaned for days, however that's the only bad experience I've had on the renewed X9/X10.

Ive also definitely been on a Darlington Pulsar recently that had updated Next Stop Announcements. It seemed to work quite well, with a rolling mix of cross marketing between stop screens. Audio was the new female voice used in recent Teesside updates and I think the Northumbria X21/22?

Sounds like the depot haven't bothered to update all of the vehicles if some were not working, which is a shame as the system has many benefits.

Who actually manages the system anyway?

Marketing team do the NSA slides as far as I'm aware, and yes, it's the same voice.

(18 Feb 2018, 7:25 pm)Dan wrote Did you miss this post? I responded to you giving details of this feature just a few weeks ago, when you made a similar post commenting on the lack of updates to the Arriva North East fleet list.

I did miss that post - finished work at 4:00 that Sunday morning, and so only briefly checked the ANE part of the forum when I woke up. I no longer have Tapatalk installed so wasn't notified, so didn't look for anything in particular. Apologies on that.

(18 Feb 2018, 9:02 pm)Dan wrote On a slightly different note, and perhaps something which will strike up some discussion, I travelled on a handful of Arriva buses yesterday and I found myself quite disappointed.

Few things to add on this, not going to quote the post as it's a tad lengthy!

Arriva, while they seem very keen now on kitting everything out with WiFi and e-leather, need to understand that these things are now standard for a reason, and maintain them adequately. While e-leather is easier to clean, it looks far worse if it hasn't been cleaned - and indeed it is far more apparent to customers. On a general appearance note, one of Ashington's original Sapphire E400s (7524 I believe), had a cracked upstairs front panel (inside) for at least a year, and as of August that still hadn't been rectified. 

NSAs and sockets are another issue. I can't remember the last time, with the slight caveat that I haven't travelled on one full stop since the summer, I got on a 57-plate Sapphire with working sockets. Even 7522-28's had pretty much all given up the ghost by the time the MMCs rocked up.

7416 went a year and a half without branding or internal refurbishment, and still hasn't been branded for anything! 4664 has been running around in MAX base since late 2016, while the amount of buses with incomplete branding is quite ridiculous. 

I fully echo your point about the rear destinations being used for numbers only - Ashington had 7522/3/5-8 running around like that for about half a year without caring. Yes, it is a little thing, but when you've got a bus with so many "little things", it doesn't give off an impression to the customer that you care about the bus, or them. 

There is no attention to detail. It seems like the management are still firmly stuck in the mindset where all they had to do was get a bus from A to B - while in 2018, a mindset like that won't see you get very far. You can't try and win passengers by promising everything and delivering nothing, as sooner or later they'll just give up.

I have to agree with a fair amount of the things being said above.

Next stop announcements - some mistakes in these and not updated when stops are moved or new stops are added, the Sapphire 7 announcements are the same now as they were when launched in December 2013 and since then, a number of new bus stops have been placed on this route and have not been added and then there's the fact they think Rushyford is near Durham, a stop in Woodham comes up on the screen but there's no audio announcement and even more randomly, the Pulsar's and E400's refer to this same stop in two different ways, no announcements at all on morning runs to Framwellgate Moor. Similar issues on the 5/5A routes at Darlington although it's rare to see anything other than the Arriva logo on those, 1465/66 have never had any announcements since they were fitted. X21 hasn't had announcements for a while, Arriva programmed announcements in for the 21/X21 about a month before the full route became the X21 and sure enough they no longer worked when this change happened.

Plugs - it's at least a year possibly two since I complained to Arriva that none of the 7 allocation has plugs you can actually use, only change in this time is that 1515 randomly having its plugs replaced with USBs. Complaints on a regular basis on their Facebook about this and nothing changes.

Appearence - apart from the fleet numbers on the front, I can easily tell whether a Sapphire 7 Pulsar is a Darlington or Belmont example just by looking at the state of it, saw one of Belmont's examples the other night and a considerable amount of paintwork was missing, bodywork was also scratched and dented to hell, one of them was going round looking like it was repainted by small children using their hands, not helped by missing Sapphire logos. At least Darlington has finally sorted that shoddy looking bodge job panel on the front of 7538 from when it was based at Belmont (still requires a logo though). The very outdated 21/X21 branding just shows how much care and effort gets put in at times, the notices on buses about the X21 changes that came into effect yesterday even showed a photo (one of mine of course [emoji6]) of a EcoCity with the old branding in question. Some of the MAX Pulsar's on the 306 have yet to be branded.

One thing I complained to Arriva about recently was a lack of heat in any form on the top deck of our Sapphire 7 E400's on every journey I have made since about the end of September, mind I was amazed about a fortnight after completing to get a E400 that wasn't totally baltic like I had been enduring for a few months.

(18 Feb 2018, 11:53 pm)mb134 wrote 7416 went a year and a half without branding or internal refurbishment, and still hasn't been branded for anything! 4664 has been running around in MAX base since late 2016, while the amount of buses with incomplete branding is quite ridiculous. 

I fully echo your point about the rear destinations being used for numbers only - Ashington had 7522/3/5-8 running around like that for about half a year without caring. Yes, it is a little thing, but when you've got a bus with so many "little things", it doesn't give off an impression to the customer that you care about the bus, or them. 

There is no attention to detail. It seems like the management are still firmly stuck in the mindset where all they had to do was get a bus from A to B - while in 2018, a mindset like that won't see you get very far. You can't try and win passengers by promising everything and delivering nothing, as sooner or later they'll just give up.

7416 won't get branded now, despite the longest opportunity just to apply the generic MAX vinyls. 4664 isn't a MAX bus, but carries what is regarded as the former 'alternative' Arriva livery and is fully unbranded inside with no branding on the headrests to reflect this, but even though, generic Arriva branding could have been applied to this too. 

Their marketing techniques make no sense either, a campaign for the Sapphire 6 last year, compared the price difference between a luxury chauffeur driven car and a Sapphire bus, aiming at the wrong market there...I could list all the things wrong with the marketing!

There is also no consistency in the printed publicity either, the switch to folded timetables also brought around a complete redesign of the colourways, of which they used the Best Impressions MAX template, changed it around a bit, and now it just doesn't fit in with the national 'look'.   The X21/X22 timetable looked like it was designed in a nursery, the hideous use of very dark grey, dark blue, purple, Arriva blue and green, along with a logo which doesn't even have "Sapphire" in the correct font... 

The continued use of old logos, i.e. the 2013 Sapphire logo, the 2017 transitional version, MAX, Frequenta and even the old Arriva logo, just puts on a very poor show in the marketing side of things too. 

The news/publicity articles the NE marketing team publish make absolutely no sense whatsoever, whether that be through sentences just being thrown together, spelling errors and just contradictory/wrong information... 

Obviously these are very small problems, and there a whole lot more, but to someone like me who has only been researching the best marketing techniques, it's like banging my head off a wall looking at their c**p.

(18 Feb 2018, 9:02 pm)Dan wrote On a slightly different note, and perhaps something which will strike up some discussion, I travelled on a handful of Arriva buses yesterday and I found myself quite disappointed.

I made my way to Durham on a few Go North East services (56 to Concord, 50 to Framwellgate Moor, then X21 to Durham), deciding to jump off the X21 in Durham rather than continue to Bishop Auckland on the same bus. Instead I thought it'd be a good idea to go to Bishop Auckland by using the X46 to Crook with a connection to the X1 from there, to sample a few buses that I don't often get to travel on.

The first bus that arrived on the X46 was 7418. Internally the bus was quite well-presented - it wasn't the cleanest but my immediate perception wouldn't have been that it was a 13-year old bus. Externally the bus wasn't quite as good: the bus was dirty (somewhat understandable given the nature of the route), and the biggest eyesore for me was the lack of black masking at the bottom of the front destination display, meaning what is ordinarily hidden was all exposed and on show. The right hand side of the black masking was coming away which meant that part of the Wi-Fi symbol and 'W' in Wi-Fi was also missing.

My next bus was 1590. Immediately I noticed what seems to be common on Arriva North East's Streetlites: the chrome Wrightbus grille on the front of the bus was partially missing. A very little thing, and only us enthusiasts would ever notice it, but it seems to be quite common for this to be (partially) missing nowadays. Is there a reason for it? The Next Stop Announcements were so quiet they were barely audible (I have fairly good hearing and struggled to make out some of the announcements), and the power sockets didn't work. I didn't try the Wi-Fi but I was prompted to connect to it - so in terms of new technology on buses, the Wi-Fi probably would have been the only thing ticking the box for me.

In Bishop Auckland Bus Station, I spotted a brand new Streetlite. I wasn't quite sure what service the bus was going to be allocated to but suspected it was going to be a late-running 5A (which turned out to be true). The driver eventually came out of the canteen around 5 minutes after the service was due to depart, eventually leaving around 7 minutes late. The interior of 1604 was similar to what we usually see - the seats still showing the old Sapphire logo/colourscheme, but the cove panels had been given a makeover showing the new corporate light blue colour. These cove panels added quite a bit of colour to the bus which made for a more pleasant experience, but the designs looked amateurish, as if they had been quickly mocked up on Microsoft Paint, and I found the bottoms of the vinyls were peeling already (just a week or so after being put on!) The most disappointing and unprofessional thing to see, was the Next Stop Announcement monitor showing the black default "HANOVER DISPLAYS LTD" screen. Despite having been at Darlington for a fortnight or so before being pressed into service, Arriva clearly hadn't updated the Next Stop Announcement media at all, even just to show their own logo (if the media wasn't ready). Above the TFT monitor, a small section of the black masking was missing, so every time the bell was pressed, a red light was visible below the actual 'Stopping' sign. Again a very little thing, but feels like something that should have been spotted and fixed by Wrightbus while the bus was being prepared for service. Unlike a lot of enthusiasts, I don't think Wrightbus' range of buses are all that bad. They don't scream 'quality' but they're not as bad as they're made out to be, either. I must say that the stop/start technology on the Streetlites is a lot more noticeable and irritating than on the StreetDeck range. It was really starting to irritate me by the end of my journey, and I was glad to get off, but I suspect it's something we'll have to get used to going forward...

When I did get off, I noticed that the rear destination display was still set up to only show a route number on the rear. I'd noticed this last weekend too, but thought it would have been sorted by now (it's a quick fix!)... Clearly not. Something else that makes no difference to a 'normal' customer, but why bother spending the money on the full-size rear display, only to show a route number in the middle of it? Seems bizarre!

I jumped on another bus from Shildon to Newton Aycliffe after this. Didn't get any details other than it being a 61-reg Pulsar. Going back to the basics, I was surprisingly more impressed. The bus was really clean and tidy internally, and the only thing letting it down was a Next Stop Announcement system being fitted, but only showing a generic Arriva logo. I'd heard that the council contributed funding towards the fitting of Next Stop Announcements to Pulsars in Darlington, so quite disappointing to see that the system still doesn't work, after about a year(?) of the system being fitted.

In Newton Aycliffe, I got a lucky shot of an 'old' Sapphire Pulsar on the 7 with a 'new' Sapphire Streetlite on the 5. Was happy with the shot overall and although I still do prefer the older design, it did look quite dated compared to the new livery (which is starting to grow on me now - it looks quite modern and fresh). 1522 was another example of a bus with a missing chrome Wrightbus logo at the front.

My next ride was 4814, from Newton Aycliffe to Darlington. I noticed that the offside was still missing branding (which it has done for years now), and it still made reference to the long-since withdrawn 21 service between Darlington and Peterlee. The seats weren't very comfortable, but on a brighter note, the Next Stop Announcement system (fitted a year or two ago) was now working. There was no audio but the visuals were working spot on - complete with new Arriva logo etc.

Next up was a ride on the X67 to Stockton. A bus arrived on stand but the driver left it, going for his break. Another driver didn't emerge until 15 minutes after the bus was scheduled to depart. The driver started to load the bus with passengers, still showing "Not in Service" on the display, until intending passengers queried: "Are you the 66 or the 67?" The driver, with a rather poor attitude, grunted, "The X67" and didn't take too kindly to an elderly gentleman pointing out that he hadn't put the X67 on the display. At this point, the next X66 had arrived, in the form of 9/10 branded Optare Solo 2868, which would have departed a minute or two after my X67. Again, it may come as a surprise, but the Next Stop Announcements weren't working on the X67... Although this one did seem to be a Hanover issue with a faulty system, rather than Arriva just not bothering to programme anything.

After taking a few photos in Stockton, I had a ride on freshly-painted Centro 1924 next. It was allocated to the 15 service - pretty uncommon to see anything other than a Pulsar on there. The bus was running late, with the next 15 unloading passengers on the High Street immediately behind. But again, going back to the basics, what a well-presented bus! The light blue paintwork stands out really well in Stockton High Street against all of the other buses, and Arriva have done a great job on improving the interior too, with leather seats and a grey moquette used on the seat backs, covering the old grey plastic.

My final bus of the day was 1917. Due to be withdrawn in the imminent future, I was keen to secure one last ride on one of these Cadets. Taking the 'scenic' route to Middlesbrough on the 17A service, I was again impressed by the more basic bus. The interior was very smart (probably the best-presented bus of the day), and aside from the seats being quite uncomfortable with little padding, it was a really nice ride. At least the Wrightbus logo on this one can't fall off! 

All in all, it seemed like the modern features on Arriva's buses were letting them down. Other operators, in and out of the region, are just as bad when it comes to maintaining these new technologies, but it really did give a poor perception. Aiming to put any bias aside, I travelled north on the Go North East X9 service. The bus was clean externally and aside from a bit of litter upstairs (despite having bins near the tables... you can lead a horse to water, eh), it was a really pleasant passenger experience. Again the Volvo B5s get a lot of negativity in the enthusiast community, but I'd say that this round of buses on the X9/X10 is the best yet. Wi-Fi worked, Next Stop Announcements worked, the three-pin sockets worked (which did come as a surprise, admittedly), and I had plenty leg-room on my table seat... I'd go as far to suggest that it's probably one of the best experiences you'll get, travelling on a bus in the North East.

During my working life I worked for both Go Ahead and Arriva and found Go Ahead progressive and thorough when introducing new equipment and not geared to using the cheapest alternative. Arriva always seemed to go off half cocked  and failed to complete tasks to a satisfactory conclusion with no one prepared to take ownership anyone who dared to make an adverse comment was viewed as a negative and a troublemaker .The X1 team of drivers always had an uphill battle to maintain the standards they aspired to especially as the streetlites were a new entity featuring 2 engine types. During my time as an X1 driver I was outspoken and not liked by supervision

I think one of the main things behind all of this is that Arriva are never really ahead of the curve. Sapphire, for example, was always just a poor imitation of Stagecoach's "Gold". WiFi and on-board power only started to appear, iirc, after Go North East had offered it on some of their premium services. 

I think the one thing that strikes me most often is that, every summer, the X18 has the potential to be a immensely popular route. It is popular and very well used, don't get me wrong, however every year they run *very* late, all day, every day. While 7529-33 are very pleasant vehicles, that's one less than the summer PVR, and the summer spares the past two years have been in the form of 4664 and 7416... The route still has no NSAs, and for a potential 4 hour journey, no power is quite surprising. 

The X15 is another example. While I still believe 7511-3 are capable of the route when working, the amount they seem to be VOR now is not acceptable for the route. Their sister vehicles have just been taken off a far less demanding pair of routes, and while those 3 were in a better condition to begin with, 4 years of solid flogging up and down the A1 hasn't done them any good. New vehicles are badly needed, and they don't seem to be forthcoming. On that note, I contacted Arriva last summer complaining about the service, and asked why the service didn't have newer vehicles when reliability was so poor. Their response was that they were moving more powerful vehicles to the service from October... did they break down before they even got there?

I can safely say that I am glad not to be wholly reliant on arriva, any more. NSAs never worked on the pulsars allocated to the 24 (and now the 22) and very few of the vehicles on the 6 have working displays.

And the thing of drivers disappearing when they're due to depart is an annoying one. Used to particularly bug me when the 8:15 6rocked up at ten past then the driver disappeared for 10 minutes, ending up hitting all the hoards of students wanting to travel half a mile, as a result. I know a lot of these co Durham routes are a 3 hour plus round trip, so it's essential to start with an empty bladder but it's always the same few drivers who stretch their comfort breaks out longer than they should.

My relief at has genuine choice of operator for my most frequent journeys is somewhat tempered by the fact that the rather rude driver who used to often work the 22 now appears on the 64 almost every time I use it with the boys. Arriva's 70p local child single fares beat the flat £1 hands down, though! Shame I usually have to start the exchange with "yes, he's still 14."