Yeah, that's the one (apologies, got the numbers wrong)
I know Darlington is experiencing an significant uptick in Covid cases so might be a case of drivers isolating?
I was guessing that was the reason but hadn't heard anything so wasn't certain
It replaces a local Washington service (85) which normally runs between Concord and Brady Square but on a Sunday only runs to the Galleries.
I assume it's so the bus which runs the Sunday 85 can interwork with other local Washington routes (whereas the Monday - Saturday service appears to involve that bus shuttling back and forth with no interworking).
Cheers for confirming!
So they’re binning off the long established “Quaylink” as well replacing it with “East Gateshead Orbits”?
The mind boggles
I don't get this
Some of the local route branding works really well and elevates a service in the eyes of passengers and potential passengers - some can be a bit forgettable/ unnecessary though.
The Angel works well IMHO - it promotes the service that passes a tourist attraction, it's probably attracted a few leisure journeys over the years
I get why some operators don't bother with branding, especially ones who run fairly "common or garden" urban services - e.g. Busways in Newcastle - for a generic "city centre to housing estate" route it doesn't matter too much if it's the number 37 or the "Red Line" or has some branding based on the name of the terminus ("The Flat-Roofed Pub Flyer" or "The Diamond White Line") - but it is worth doing it for the 100 to the Metrocentre
The Quaylink services though... they are the kind of routes where you've surely got a leisure market, a Quaylink branding could attract people to Sage/ Baltic, you'd be able to fill a few seats off-peak
East Gateshead though... no offence to east Gateshead (I think I have some distant family in the area) but it's not a tourist destination. That bit of route is about getting people from east Gateshead into central Gateshead, into Newcastle, onto the Metro at Heworth... it seems a bit odd to focus on that bit of the route rather than the Quayside section - it'd be a bit like branding the 21 as "The Birtley Bus" (I mean, it serves Birtley, but that's not the attraction)
I appreciate that this is part of a wider rebranding etc - it just seems to be getting rid of a pretty long established brand that promoted bus travel to a leisure destination - seems necessary