A bus I've always thought Arriva up here should own is Mercedes-Benz Citaro. Arriva up here seem to be mostly Enviros Streetlites Pulsar & Solos

Other buses Like Solo Sr, Optare Versa, Plaxton President

(29 Jun 2021, 10:24 pm)Micheal Aaron wrote A bus I've always thought Arriva up here should own is Mercedes-Benz Citaro. Arriva up here seem to be mostly Enviros Streetlites Pulsar & Solos

Other buses Like Solo Sr, Optare Versa, Plaxton President

Depends where they order from I suppose.
I'd recommend the lamb bhuna and onion pilau. If that's not an option - then it has to be salt & pepper chicken, fried rice and curry sauce.

I should have added buses making this thread

A Mixture of Plaxton Elitei and Panther LE for the long distance express routes Between Berwick/Carlisle and Newcastle as well as Middlesbrough to Scarborough. Expensive but compared to other Arriva fleets we have quite modern buses so we don't need much for a few years.

Would be nice to update the fleet though. Coaches would be good for the 685. Don't understand why they need Pulsar on. Unless it's because it ain't popular enough for coaches to run

(29 Jun 2021, 10:56 pm)Micheal Aaron wrote Would be nice to update the fleet though. Coaches would be good for the 685. Don't understand why they need Pulsar on. Unless it's because it ain't popular enough for coaches to run

Perhaps as the year draws on finally the break up of Arriva will happen, whatever the outcome, new vehicles will have to be ordered by whoever gets what...

(29 Jun 2021, 10:28 pm)Andreos1 wrote Depends where they order from I suppose.
I'd recommend the lamb bhuna and onion pilau. If that's not an option - then it has to be salt & pepper chicken, fried rice and curry sauce.

Actually started snorting when reading this!

(29 Jun 2021, 10:28 pm):DAndreos1 wrote Depends where they order from I suppose.
I'd recommend the lamb bhuna and onion pilau. If that's not an option - then it has to be salt & pepper chicken, fried rice and curry sauce.

  that made me chuckle

Being realistic here.

12x new buses for the X15/X18, 7510 - 7512 and 7514 - 7517 35 and spares, 3 Omnicities withdrawn, 1402 withdrawn, 7529 - 7533, 7553 - 7556 for X14/X20 - increase X21/X22/35 back to every 20 minutes each (prefer coaches but will be Enviro 400MMC's)
Ex London Gemini's to replace all the Pulsars on the 306, X7/X8/X9
Ex London Gemini's to replace the B7TL's on the X46 into spare role and few extra to withdraw the Gemini B7TL's.
18x replaced Pulsars at Blyth / Jesmond replace all the Omnicity's which are withdrawn (3 replaced by Enviros at Ashington). Keep other 5 at Blyth possibly for the 1/2.
New minis to start to make progress on the Solo's (Enviro 200MMC's)

Should be enough to get through to 2024/2025 when investment really needs to be done.

(29 Jun 2021, 10:28 pm)Andreos1 wrote Depends where they order from I suppose.
I'd recommend the lamb bhuna and onion pilau. If that's not an option - then it has to be salt & pepper chicken, fried rice and curry sauce.

I think a more pressing question is what would Srriva order?

Czernia doesn't sound too good.

(29 Jun 2021, 10:29 pm)Micheal Aaron wrote I should have added buses making this thread

In all seriousness, I would like to see coaches make a return on the Berwick and Carlisle routes.
I'd hope the apparent success on the X9/10 has allowed others to see that coaches could be a viable alternative.

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(30 Jun 2021, 7:25 am)idiot wrote Actually started snorting when reading this!

See, much more than complaining within the Constantopolous toolbox.
Able to engage in a bit of bantz when the opportunity presents itself.

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(30 Jun 2021, 11:11 am)MurdnunoC wrote I think a more pressing question is what would Srriva order?

Czernia doesn't sound too good.

I genuinely did think about Srriva when I saw this thread.
Thought it was a bit niche so didn't mention it. But still had a little chuckle.

(29 Jun 2021, 10:56 pm)Micheal Aaron wrote Would be nice to update the fleet though. Coaches would be good for the 685. Don't understand why they need Pulsar on. Unless it's because it ain't popular enough for coaches to run

The one issue with putting coaches on the 685 is the stopping pattern. A route like the X9 or X10 has a fairly short list of potential stops, but the 685 has 117 stops along its length. There's also the issue that generally the X9 or X10 only stops once in each area it serves, whereas the 685 is just a standard stopping service for most of its route.

A coach could work for an express "X85" service (X85 in quote marks because it'd have to be called something else like the X69). But I'm not convinced there's demand for such a service - the 685 deals with a lot of overlapping flows but relatively few people are on it for longer journeys.

(30 Jun 2021, 1:15 pm)BoroLad wrote The one issue with putting coaches on the 685 is the stopping pattern. A route like the X9 or X10 has a fairly short list of potential stops, but the 685 has 117 stops along its length. There's also the issue that generally the X9 or X10 only stops once in each area it serves, whereas the 685 is just a standard stopping service for most of its route.

A coach could work for an express "X85" service (X85 in quote marks because it'd have to be called something else like the X69). But I'm not convinced there's demand for such a service - the 685 deals with a lot of overlapping flows but relatively few people are on it for longer journeys.

In fairness it used to be ran by coaches until roughly 2012 without any real issues and it's no different to some Stagecoach services in the Highlands such as the 10 from Aberdeen to Inverness or X99 from Inverness to Thurso. Even known it stops at a lot of places most of the 'shorter' journeys are easily 40+ mins some much greater and they'd want a better comfort than a Pulsar especially when there's a train which is an option in most places.

New orders (not including spares):

- 15x ADL E400MMC 10.9M ZF X21/X22
- 13x ADL E400MMC 10.9M ZF X10/X11
- 14x Scania ADL E400MMC 10.9M X15/X18/X20
- 6x Scania ADL E400MMC 10.9M X93/X94

Cascades (Main highlights, will think about rest)
- 7541-50 308 & 2x Blyth spares
- 7401-03 X14 & 3x NE float spares

My order I'd love to see

12 Mercedes-Benz Citaro 52/53/54

13 ADL Enviro 400 X7/X8/X9

12 ADL Enviro 400MMC 43/44/45

4 ADL Enviro 200MMC 57/57A

6 Optare Solo SR 51/51A

4 Optare Versa 55

3 ADL Enviro 400MMC 685

Number of buses won't be accurate. I'm going of how many buses are usually seen on these routes

Northumbria & North Tyneside
MCV Evoseti for X10/X11 & X20/X21/X22.
E400 MMC for X14/X15/X16/X18 & 685/X85.
Streetlite Max EV for 52/53/54/(55?).
Optare Solo EV for 51/51A.

Not sure about the 55, because the one time i got on it was allocated a 43 branded sapphire e400

I doubt they'll order anything new for the NE for the forseeable future. Any new buses will be going London way and whatever they replace will be shunted up this way to eventually replace the 20 year old Volvo B7TLs.