A question? Has service 63 always operated the same route, Redcar to Middlesbrough? My recollection, and certainly photos that I've seen, tell me that this route has been operated by double deck vehicles and if I'm correct here, how did they manage the low bridge between Ormesby and Stewart's Park (Martin)?

And talking of service 63 why not offer the option of faster 'X' journeies? Two trips out of 6 per hour that already operate might just increase profitability?

In response to 'tvd' and the X56. Yes I well remember this and just how popular it was; I lived in Guisborough at the time and had call to use this service regularly. To that end I was quite vorcifaroius with my comments regarding its removal to be told that connections, and I use the word loosely, would be available at Loftus. Like the comments raised about changing buses at Swans Corner to get to Stokesley/Great Ayton from Guisborough, it didn't and doesn't work. Now, although I'm not in Guisborough we are dependant on the X93 to travel to Whitby/Scarborough as the idea of the all around the houses X4 just doesn't work.

Is it true that 2820 optare solo was on X12 on tuesday

It has the potential to be true, part of Arriva's operating policy I feel. Surely with.a little clever management a more suitable vehicle could have been sourced. Again the X12 is one of Arriva's premier routes and should be operated and marketed as such.

Arrival pink Quorum Solo running around Boldon and Sunderland City Centre and Pallion today. Thought it may have just been engineers or someone on way to Head Office at Doxford Park but was too quick heading from City Centre to Pallion from being first seen at Boldon.
More than just the driver on board.
Wonder if anything is being viewed South of Tyne and North of Wear or just the bus on a wander.

(13 Feb 2020, 3:46 pm)ifm001 wrote Arrival pink Quorum Solo running around Boldon and Sunderland City Centre and Pallion today.  Thought it may have just been engineers or someone on way to Head Office at Doxford Park but was too quick heading from City Centre to Pallion from being first seen at Boldon.
More than just the driver on board.
Wonder if anything is being viewed South of Tyne and North of Wear or just the bus on a wander.

Only services which go that way is the 592 and 593 but none of those go to Boldon.

New service?

(13 Feb 2020, 3:46 pm)ifm001 wrote Arrival pink Quorum Solo running around Boldon and Sunderland City Centre and Pallion today.  Thought it may have just been engineers or someone on way to Head Office at Doxford Park but was too quick heading from City Centre to Pallion from being first seen at Boldon.
More than just the driver on board.
Wonder if anything is being viewed South of Tyne and North of Wear or just the bus on a wander.

Metro Replacement.

(13 Feb 2020, 3:46 pm)ifm001 wrote Arrival pink Quorum Solo running around Boldon and Sunderland City Centre and Pallion today. Thought it may have just been engineers or someone on way to Head Office at Doxford Park but was too quick heading from City Centre to Pallion from being first seen at Boldon.
More than just the driver on board.
Wonder if anything is being viewed South of Tyne and North of Wear or just the bus on a wander.

Noted the same Solo at Heworth yesterday. Similar scenario.


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Have I missed something, sorry are the B9TLs moving and if so, to where?

(13 Feb 2020, 4:07 pm)Michael wrote Only services which go that way is the 592 and 593 but none of those go to Boldon.

New service?

No
Neither the 592 or 593 operate in the part I seen it. 
Was only about 15/20 mins from seeing at Boldon to seeing at Sunderland (by the Deptford retail park)

I'd like to comment on the BTL9 (7401-6) situation but as people don't seem to like engaging in "conversation" on here, I'll not bother.

(12 Feb 2020, 3:28 pm)Storx wrote Can't argue with that but that could be said mostly about most the North East really. The fact there's one bus that runs to Teesside Park which is the main the shopping area for Teesside pretty much sums up how outdated the network is down in Teesside to me then people wonder why everyone is driving. I don't know the Redcar area enough though to comment on it directly though.

It's a similar story with Silverlink and Team Valley which unless you like walking for miles you can't really get to without driving then the council wonder why they have traffic problems yet still approve extensions and more units at them. (All 3 have had new stuff built in the last couple years).

Totally agree. 
It's as though it's a race to the bottom.
Money not being made from certain routes (or not as much as they would like anyway) and they get axed and fleets get smaller. 

I genuinely wish (and challenge) at least one of the operators to take a punt - creating a service which is different and can make them money, rather than more of the same, just with a different livery and a few bits of tech thrown in. 

I can remember when Nexus did a huge survey a few years back. They visited libraries/community centres and spoke to people about what they wanted.
The sample must have been huge! 
Either way, they identified where people wanted to go and proposed a whole load of new routes as part of the provisional QCS scheme (or at least a forerunner of it). 
I've yet to see any of the operators make use of the mass of qualative or quantative data made available on a big scale (I think the X24 was one of the routes identified by Nexus. Not sure of any others).
It makes me wonder how ambitious these commercial departments really are or if as we see with the rumoured Teesside changes, they're just interested in saving pennies.

It's simple really. People here on Teeside are sick of Arriva. No consultation, and if there was it wouldn't be listened to, and continual service alterations and cuts. Nothing to promote the cause and entice the public back. As for other operators taking a hand in things, it's not going to happen is it unless someone has money to throw at such. Just look at what happened to Stage carriage or was it Bus4.

(13 Feb 2020, 8:19 pm)Andreos1 wrote Totally agree. 
It's as though it's a race to the bottom.
Money not being made from certain routes (or not as much as they would like anyway) and they get axed and fleets get smaller. 

I genuinely wish (and challenge) at least one of the operators to take a punt - creating a service which is different and can make them money, rather than more of the same, just with a different livery and a few bits of tech thrown in. 

I can remember when Nexus did a huge survey a few years back. They visited libraries/community centres and spoke to people about what they wanted.
The sample must have been huge! 
Either way, they identified where people wanted to go and proposed a whole load of new routes as part of the provisional QCS scheme (or at least a forerunner of it). 
I've yet to see any of the operators make use of the mass of qualative or quantative data made available on a big scale (I think the X24 was one of the routes identified by Nexus. Not sure of any others).
It makes me wonder how ambitious these commercial departments really are or if as we see with the rumoured Teesside changes, they're just interested in saving pennies.

I have to agree about lack of ambition for trying new things especially routes, about the last real attempt Arriva gave a go at was the X1 from Darlington and that only happened as GNE introduced the competing OK1 service. About the only real changes in the last few years have been a few frequency increases and combining or altering of routes to make some form of improvements.

Arriva seem to be the worst for this atm, very little has changed and it feels as if nothing much is being done to combat the issues going on with things like timekeeping on routes, even with congestion increasing I still can't fathom why the Sapphire 7 seems to have so many issues sticking to time lately and is forever running in twos lately, the last month of service I've encountered from Arriva has been poor to say the least, nearly missed trains as a result of drivers crawling around the routes or just faffing about making services fall behind schedule or timetables that don't meet demands some of which I've expressed problems with for many years now.

Stagecoach has likely been the most ambitious recently with services of the big three with introducing the X24 plus that Saturday only X55 which didn't perform well but hey at least they gave it a go and of course that open top 'Seasider' service although must give GNE a mention for the Toon Tour even if it was just a replacement of sorts for the City Sightseeing tour. Hodgsons has done a bit since picking up some North Yorkshire tendered work including adding some extra runs to those services. Arriva have lacked this I feel, closest I feel was the 57/57A/58 changes in Durham recently and that was only because Scarlet Band seemingly didn't want to run the 58 anymore.

With you on what you say about Arriva. There is no, or little ambition or interest across the board, from management through to the operating staff, and it shows. I've commented here about service 63 double (and odd times triple) running and yesterday we had the classic example. An 18 minute wait at James Cook Hospital on what is supposed to be a route with a 5 minute headway between buses then what do we get? 4 buses in a row! An Arriva 63, packed, an Arriva 29 followed by a Stagecoach service 10 and lastly another Arriva 63, empty! You couldn't make it but then it's a fairly regular occurrence as no-one is interested in some form of timetable/operating regulation and the passengers have, or are, throwing the towel in

(13 Feb 2020, 9:38 pm)scanialover wrote With you on what you say about Arriva. There is no, or little ambition or interest across the board, from management through to the operating staff, and it shows. I've commented here about service 63 double (and odd times triple) running and yesterday we had the classic example. An 18 minute wait at James Cook Hospital on what is supposed to  be a route with a 5 minute headway between buses then what do we get?  4 buses in a row! An Arriva 63, packed, an Arriva 29 followed by a Stagecoach service 10 and lastly another Arriva 63, empty! You couldn't make it but then it's a fairly regular occurrence as no-one is interested in some form of timetable/operating regulation and the passengers have, or are, throwing the towel in

The issue is there is absolutely no penalty for not running to timetable like there are when you travel by train or by plane.

If your flight gets cancelled and there isn't another flight until the morning, you (generally) get put up in a hotel for the night, if the last bus of the night gets cancelled, tough you're walking or paying for a taxi!

If your train is more than 15 minutes late, you can claim compensation for the delay. If your bus is running 15 minutes late, then you should be happy it's even running!

So just what is the point of timetables? Let's just let the drivers go and pick their bus up and do what they like. The attitude demonstrated here does typify in some way just how people accept the standard of bus travel.

Keeping to time all the time and having no bunching of frequent services like the 63 is pretty impossible, to be fair to Arriva.
There's the level crossing in Redcar that can hold them up both way, as well as all the traffic lights and usual congestion on the roads. And we've all seen buses running late only to get to a stop only then for the boarding passengers to ask questions, look all over for their money or pass, and basically delay things even more.
So the first bus gets delayed and end up picking up passengers who intended boarding the next bus - which in turn is quieter and can keep to its time easier, ending up behind the earlier one.

The inevitability of bus travel these days and despite my grumble about service 63 being from the area I know just how difficult it is to maintain time. I'd thought of things like turning late running services short and some sort of radio control management but this is Middlesbrough not London and it's just best, a fact, we stick with what we've got.

(14 Feb 2020, 2:34 am)scanialover wrote So just what is the point of timetables? Let's just let the drivers go and pick their bus up and do what they like. The attitude demonstrated here does typify in some way just how people accept the standard of bus travel.

Exactly. And we shouldn't just accept it. The fact that bus companies can just cancel services with no penalty just annoys me!

(14 Feb 2020, 7:00 am)tvd wrote Keeping to time all the time and having no bunching of frequent services like the 63 is pretty impossible, to be fair to Arriva.
There's the level crossing in Redcar that can hold them up both way, as well as all the traffic lights and usual congestion on the roads. And we've all seen buses running late only to get to a stop only then for the boarding passengers to ask questions, look all over for their money or pass, and basically delay things even more.
So the first bus gets delayed and end up picking up passengers who intended boarding the next bus - which in turn is quieter and can keep to its time easier, ending up behind the earlier one.

Then maybe their schedulers should work extra time in to the timetable! If the delays have been going on this long, then surely they know roughly how late services always are!

(14 Feb 2020, 7:10 am)scanialover wrote The inevitability of bus travel these days and despite my grumble about service 63 being from the area I know just how difficult it is to maintain time. I'd thought of things like turning late running services short and some sort of radio control management but this is Middlesbrough not London and it's just best, a fact, we stick with what we've got.

GNE has radio to all their buses and regularly turns them round to maintain time. The thing is, this costs money and Arriva probably can't afford it!

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(14 Feb 2020, 7:10 am)scanialover wrote The inevitability of bus travel these days and despite my grumble about service 63 being from the area I know just how difficult it is to maintain time. I'd thought of things like turning late running services short and some sort of radio control management but this is Middlesbrough not London and it's just best, a fact, we stick with what we've got.

Radios would help, but years ago they did things like you suggest,
curtailing services, running empty to catch uptime and such like just by communication with other drivers and local inspectors.

The trouble these days is less inspectors to manage these things, and less frequent services - meaning they can’t cut out parts of the route because in many cases it would mean too long for those areas to get another bus.

So what's the point of being in business if you can't afford to be ? How much would a radio network cost , pitch that against how more reliable and effective services would be. I don't know just how depots (Arriva) keep in touch with their drivers Mobile phones perhaps? It all sounds a bit archaic, quite honestly.

(14 Feb 2020, 10:47 am)scanialover wrote So what's the point of being in business if you can't afford to be ? How much would a radio network cost , pitch that against how more reliable and effective services would be. I don't know just how depots (Arriva) keep in touch with their drivers Mobile phones perhaps? It all sounds a bit archaic, quite honestly.

The issue is Arriva's owners seeming want to invest as little as possible in it, so anything is too much.
Yes, drivers have to stop the bus and get off to use their mobile if they need to get in touch with the depot (we had an issue with the ticket machine not accepting cards pre-ticketer upgrade, and a passenger wasnt happy about it as he had no cash, so she had to call up to ask what to do)
Not sure how it would work the other way round, I guess if their phone rights they just check it at the next stop.
Although iirc the ticket machines have a messaging function on them so maybe that's how they do it now

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(14 Feb 2020, 10:55 am)streetdeckfan wrote The issue is Arriva's owners seeming want to invest as little as possible in it, so anything is too much.
Yes, drivers have to stop the bus and get off to  use their mobile if they need to get in touch with the depot (we had an issue with the ticket machine not accepting cards pre-ticketer upgrade, and a passenger wasnt happy about it as he had no cash, so she had to call up to ask what to do)
Not sure how it would work the other way round, I guess if their phone rights they just check it at the next stop.
Although iirc the ticket machines have a messaging function on them so maybe that's how they do it now

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Drivers get flagged down at places with Arriva offices to convey the message.

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1499 now carries a substantial amount of blue...wonder who's idea that was!

(13 Feb 2020, 9:12 pm)Jimmi wrote I have to agree about lack of ambition for trying new things especially routes, about the last real attempt Arriva gave a go at was the X1 from Darlington and that only happened as GNE introduced the competing OK1 service. About the only real changes in the last few years have been a few frequency increases and combining or altering of routes to make some form of improvements.

Arriva seem to be the worst for this atm, very little has changed and it feels as if nothing much is being done to combat the issues going on with things like timekeeping on routes, even with congestion increasing I still can't fathom why the Sapphire 7 seems to have so many issues sticking to time lately and is forever running in twos lately, the last month of service I've encountered from Arriva has been poor to say the least, nearly missed trains as a result of drivers crawling around the routes or just faffing about making services fall behind schedule or timetables that don't meet demands some of which I've expressed problems with for many years now.

Stagecoach has likely been the most ambitious recently with services of the big three with introducing the X24 plus that Saturday only X55 which didn't perform well but hey at least they gave it a go and of course that open top 'Seasider' service although must give GNE  a mention for the Toon Tour even if it was just a replacement of sorts for the City Sightseeing tour. Hodgsons has done a bit since picking up some North Yorkshire tendered work including adding some extra runs to those services. Arriva have lacked this I feel, closest I feel was the 57/57A/58 changes in Durham recently and that was only because Scarlet Band seemingly didn't want to run the 58 anymore.

I weirdly have to totally disagree with this from north of the Tyne in N Tyneside and SE Northumberland point of view. GNE is by far by a country mile the worst. Summary of it from around here's point view.

Arriva
Extended 57A to Ashington on Sundays which I believe is ran commercially now
51A to Holystone
43 extended to Morpeth
306 extension to Whitley Bay
New Blyth peak expresses
Experimented with later buses on X10/X11 (didn't work)
Extended 1 to Widdrington
Not many new buses recently bar the few for X21/X22 but nothing downgraded.
Talking tour on Seahouses summer buses.
No big cuts to services in past 5 years bar the odd early or late service.

Stagecoach (Not really their area).
Extended 22 and 1 to Cobalt
Seaside bus in North Tyneside

GoNorthEast
Extended the 1 to Metro Centre via the world but cut Kibblesworth in the process.
Extended 11 to Newcastle (didn't work).
Cut 309/10 to every 20 minutes.
Cut 9 from Sunderland to South Shields (5) which then got cut altogether.
Scrapped across town links with 58.
No new buses but Cobalt's refurbished.
Indigo / Little Coasters downgraded buses.
40/41/42/42A is about to get butchered - again.
11/19/40/41/42/42A only day time services since they've lost the night subsidies.
309 last bus getting earlier and earlier.
No mentionable improvements to services at all. Literally I can't think of one enhancement to timetables.

I guess it just depends on where you live on what people think. The Northumbria Arriva has always been more proactive that the Durham / Tees division though. I could imagine people in certain parts of Sunderland not having glowing reviews or either GNE or Stagecoach depending on the area.

(14 Feb 2020, 11:04 am)omnicity4659 wrote 1499 now carries a substantial amount of blue...wonder who's idea that was!

It was the NHS’ idea. This is how it was always intended to be branded, with Go North East’s 729 and 730 expected to carry a similar livery.



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(14 Feb 2020, 10:55 am)streetdeckfan wrote The issue is Arriva's owners seeming want to invest as little as possible in it, so anything is too much.
Yes, drivers have to stop the bus and get off to  use their mobile if they need to get in touch with the depot (we had an issue with the ticket machine not accepting cards pre-ticketer upgrade, and a passenger wasnt happy about it as he had no cash, so she had to call up to ask what to do)
Not sure how it would work the other way round, I guess if their phone rights they just check it at the next stop.
Although iirc the ticket machines have a messaging function on them so maybe that's how they do it now

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The ETM does have a messaging system yep, so direct contact is available and used as much as radio systems.

re some of the comment above....

1) waiting at durham bus station for 2 hours for a 21 to low fell. Asked 6+ drivers GNE if they could radio control and see what the crack was. All said radio not working so what's the point?
2) running buses on empty to catch up... 21 ( AGAIN) sanding in low fell in the rain, waited 15 minutes for a ? 12 minute service... bus appears.... not in service but empty. Next 2 buses in service but full. 4th bus managed to get on and pay £5 quid for the privilege of standing all the way to newcastle. Time from standing at bus stop to arriving in Newcastle 1 hour 10 minutes.

What is ETM? I always though that Arriva buses had some kind of tracking system that allowed some form of contact with the depot? It wasn't the most reliable and probably much the same as the present radio systems. There is a saying here? It is what it is.

Is it true that redcar tesma Avenue 4705 is at Belmont