Go North East

[Eyersey468]

already come and gone haven't they? a lot of Solo SRs have been withdrawn due to timetable changes, mostly tender losses if I remember correctly.

I have heard more changes are coming but what they are I couldn't say. Word is GNE is hemorrhaging money and its to try and stem the losses

 

[Murray J]

I have heard more changes are coming but what they are I couldn't say. Word is GNE is hemorrhaging money and its to try and stem the losses

Right, that does seem plausible, things don't seem good right now.

 

[jkkne]

Changes have appeared on VOSA for January but one looks to be some contract gains.

Reliability of the network is still awful and branding is now all but dead tokenism on some routes

 

[hst43102]

Changes have appeared on VOSA for January but one looks to be some contract gains.

Reliability of the network is still awful and branding is now all but dead tokenism on some routes

Which routes? Branding is certainly a lot messier than it was but the majority of buses on branded routes carry the correct branding. It's still miles ahead of Arriva's branding efforts

 

[jkkne]

Which routes? Branding is certainly a lot messier than it was but the majority of buses on branded routes carry the correct branding. It's still miles ahead of Arriva's branding efforts

The 21 and 56 are particularly poor at the moment but for the former I understand there were a lot of Streetdecks VOR as a result of maintenance and anti social behaviour

 

[Soundwave]

More bad news for Go North East as It looks like engineering is going on strike.

Bus passengers are being warned to expect disruption after engineers employed by Go North East announced strike action in the week before Christmas.

The 150 engineers have rejected a 10% pay increase, which they say is a real terms pay cut with the true inflation rate (RPI) standing at 14.2%. The engineers will begin strike action on Monday, December 19, with the dispute ending on the morning of Sunday, December 25.


Unite general secretary Sharon Graham said: "Go Ahead is an extremely wealthy company that can fully afford to pay its workers a fair pay increase. Its failure to do so is all about boosting its profits and not about affordability. Our members at Go North East will receive Unite’s unflagging support."

 

[Andyh82]

They’ve rejected a 10% pay rise?!

Also whereas Go ahead may be wealthy, Go North East were either making a very modest profit or were making a loss

 

[DanNCL]

I have heard there are major changes coming to the network at GNE

Oh no not again…

The 21 and 56 are particularly poor at the moment but for the former I understand there were a lot of Streetdecks VOR as a result of maintenance and anti social behaviour

Not unheard of to be waiting over an hour for the 21. Still more reliable than its rail based competitor from Chester-le-Street though!

Streetdeck reliability went down the pan when they moved to Riverside. Entirely predictable this would happen with the vehicles moving to a depot that was unfamiliar with them. Anti social behaviour isn’t that bad on the 21, it is however an issue on the 56.

They’ve rejected a 10% pay rise?!

Also whereas Go ahead may be wealthy, Go North East were either making a very modest profit or were making a loss

There’s more to it than the pay, although that is a big factor as many of these jobs are barely minimum wage. The closure of Chester-le-Street depot was handled appallingly, and staff there were treated like muck by GNE.

 

[Megafuss]

They won't get more than 10%. If what I've heard is true, the company is on it's knees

 

[TheGrandWazoo]

They’ve rejected a 10% pay rise?!

Also whereas Go ahead may be wealthy, Go North East were either making a very modest profit or were making a loss

That's always the union way - emphasise the group's wealth!

The closure of Chester le Street may well have been sensible in removing a large, expensive depot but it really needed to be replaced by a budget version rather than dispersing the routes elsewhere and destroying reliability.

 

[Andyh82]

Is reliability worse closing Chester, or is it just the same poor reliability caused by the driver shortages?

Earlier this year it was common to see GNE buses parked up all over Chester le Street town centre, which generally meant it was a bus that was in the middle of its board that didn’t have a driver to do the next bit

Just in the same way as you’d see numerous buses parked up at Washington Galleries which usually wouldn’t be there and loads filling up the layover bays at Gateshead Interchange

 

[Megafuss]

Is reliability worse closing Chester, or is it just the same poor reliability caused by the driver shortages?

Earlier this year it was common to see GNE buses parked up all over Chester le Street town centre, which generally meant it was a bus that was in the middle of its board that didn’t have a driver to do the next bit

Just in the same way as you’d see numerous buses parked up at Washington Galleries which usually wouldn’t be there and loads filling up the layover bays at Gateshead Interchange

Awful late running rather than no shows these days

 

[Eyersey468]

That's always the union way - emphasise the group's wealth!

The closure of Chester le Street may well have been sensible in removing a large, expensive depot but it really needed to be replaced by a budget version rather than dispersing the routes elsewhere and destroying reliability.

I've heard the only part of GNE that is making money is National Express, local bus is apparently hemorrhaging money

 

[jkkne]

Is reliability worse closing Chester, or is it just the same poor reliability caused by the driver shortages?

Earlier this year it was common to see GNE buses parked up all over Chester le Street town centre, which generally meant it was a bus that was in the middle of its board that didn’t have a driver to do the next bit

Just in the same way as you’d see numerous buses parked up at Washington Galleries which usually wouldn’t be there and loads filling up the layover bays at Gateshead Interchange

Last week the A1 roadworks overran and the road didn’t reopen on time. This delayed a lot of Angel services getting to Chester and Durham as the resulting roads were chockful. It’s obviously a rare occurrence but an outstation or even Washington based would let you get vehicles to Chester for service.

The A1 coalhoise redevelopment closures are only getting worse and more frequent for the next 2 years

 

[WY Bus Spotter]

They won't get more than 10%. If what I've heard is true, the company is on it's knees

Certainly looks that way.

 

[Eyersey468]

5489 caught fire today and is badly damaged.

 

[gimmea50anyday]

What is 5489?

 

[GusB]

What is 5489?

Having done a search for "Go North East 5489", it would appear that it is an Alexander-Dennis Enviro 200MMC. It would be helpful if forum members provided a bit more information and didn't assume that the casual reader would know what they were talking about.

 

[hst43102]

Having done a search for "Go North East 5489", it would appear that it is an Alexander-Dennis Enviro 200MMC. It would be helpful if forum members provided a bit more information and didn't assume that the casual reader would know what they were talking about.

5489 is indeed an E200MMC. Here's a BBC article about the fire.

Go North East bus catches fire in Whickham

The passenger bus has been destroyed after it caught fire on a road in Gateshead.

www.bbc.co.uk

A passer-by captured the moment a Go North East bus caught fire, sending plumes of smoke into the air.
The Green Arrow single-decker was on Oakfield Road in Whickham, near Gateshead, when the rear of the vehicle was engulfed in flames at about 14:30 GMT on Wednesday.
It is not known if anyone was injured or if there were passengers onboard at the time.
Two fire crews attended and extinguished the flames shortly after.

 

[DanNCL]

I've heard the only part of GNE that is making money is National Express, local bus is apparently hemorrhaging money

If GNE can't even make money on the 21 and the 56 when Stagecoach are making money on routes with much lower useage such as the X47 then there's something *majorly* wrong with GNE's financial management.

Last week the A1 roadworks overran and the road didn’t reopen on time. This delayed a lot of Angel services getting to Chester and Durham as the resulting roads were chockful. It’s obviously a rare occurrence but an outstation or even Washington based would let you get vehicles to Chester for service.

The A1 coalhoise redevelopment closures are only getting worse and more frequent for the next 2 years

The 21 and X21 aren't the only routes that suffer with the A1 works - the 28, 28B, 29 and 93 suffer too. Highways England have managed the project dreadfully, only announcing closures one or two days in advance that must have been planned much longer ago, and virtually all of the closures overrunning. That said, GNE should be planning a contingency for when these closures over run, given that it's virtually guaranteed to happen.

 

[Eyersey468]

Having done a search for "Go North East 5489", it would appear that it is an Alexander-Dennis Enviro 200MMC. It would be helpful if forum members provided a bit more information and didn't assume that the casual reader would know what they were talking about.

I apologise for not clarifying

 

[TheGrandWazoo]

If GNE can't even make money on the 21 and the 56 when Stagecoach are making money on routes with much lower useage such as the X47 then there's something *majorly* wrong with GNE's financial management.

I don't know if anyone is saying that those routes are losing money but there's plenty of lesser routes in Derwentside, East Durham or Northumberland, and even in Tyne and Wear.

 

[Eyersey468]

I don't know if anyone is saying that those routes are losing money but there's plenty of lesser routes in Derwentside, East Durham or Northumberland, and even in Tyne and Wear.

I can't comment as to which routes are losing money but according to Companies House GNE made a loss of over half a million pounds in the 2020-21 financial year

 

[DanNCL]

I suspect part of GNE's financial issues will be down to just how many different vehicle types they have in their fleet. They've got both ADL and Wright products for both single and double deck new in the last 3 years, as well as both ADL and Wright deckers that are 10+ years old, along with many Optares, OmniDekkas and still some Mercs too, not to mention the Yutongs (although at least those have some external funding). Contrast with Stagecoach who have an almost entirely ADL fleet and have done for a long time.

Then there's repaints too - GNE must shell out a fortune on the frequent new livery designs commisioned from Ray Stenning that add nothing to the company, and the far too frequent repaints, some vehicles being repainted twice in the space of 12 months. Again contrast with Stagecoach and Arriva, both of whom have only had one rebrand in the last 10 years and are only repainting their vehicles when it's required as part of vehicle upkeep anyway.

 

[TheGrandWazoo]

I suspect part of GNE's financial issues will be down to just how many different vehicle types they have in their fleet. They've got both ADL and Wright products for both single and double deck new in the last 3 years, as well as both ADL and Wright deckers that are 10+ years old, along with many Optares, OmniDekkas and still some Mercs too, not to mention the Yutongs (although at least those have some external funding). Contrast with Stagecoach who have an almost entirely ADL fleet and have done for a long time.

Then there's repaints too - GNE must shell out a fortune on the frequent new livery designs commisioned from Ray Stenning that add nothing to the company, and the far too frequent repaints, some vehicles being repainted twice in the space of 12 months. Again contrast with Stagecoach and Arriva, both of whom have only had one rebrand in the last 10 years and are only repainting their vehicles when it's required as part of vehicle upkeep anyway.

If you're advocating that Arriva North East is the way to run a business, we may have to disagree They are a lacklustre operation, especially South of the Tyne. They have vehicles in a terrible condition including vehicles from 2009 that have never been repainted (photo from Flickr - Michael A Parker). Stagecoach is better but feels that Go NE has experienced more change in its service allocations.

Arriva Ashington VDL SB200 Wright Pulsar 2 NK09 BPY 1409

Explore Micheal Aaron's 6918 photos on Flickr!

www.flickr.com

I agree on some of the criticisms of the Gilbert era. Too many indulgences that please the veg but don't pay many bills - Routemaster on the 21, random enthusiast liveries etc. There were some positive moves (like the X-lines network) but even that had its baffling moves with the Interdecks arriving and soon disappearing, and the idea that the X84/X85 could justify new e400mmcs. I do applaud firms that try to market their services effectively but I couldn't see the point of rebrands for the sake of it - it seemed very much like "not invented here" or "not invented by Ray". Felt unnecessary and that the glossy videos were spend that wasn't really required either.

The fleet probably does need some standardisation but guess they have a lot of schools work where many of the B7TLs and Omnidekkas and they did dual source Versas and Streetlites about 9/10 years ago oddly.

 

[Megafuss]

I wonder if GNE are being primed for a sale?

Making redundancies in the middle of a financial year either means they are in a VERY bad place and/or they need to make the books look good for year end.

East Yorkshire was spun off for a reason.

 

[pepperpot80]

I don't think the marketing spend is the problem here. It's spit in a bucket compared to other costs. Doesn't help, sure, but equally if no-one had put any effort in on attracting people on to buses, then that would have been a much bigger sign of giving up. I would suspect that Martijn Gilbert didn't make all of those moves without the support of Group leadership, with costed budgets - and probably the changes in leadership combined with the continued pressure on bus operating costs leads to the current position.

Many of the projects intended to support bus travel in the north east appear to be on hold - there's not been much sign of the Transforming Cities funding out and about, and I can't see anyone here showing how GNE are squandering BSIP funding. There's still no certainty on this mythical £2 bus fare, so presumably that funding is also not secure. So no real surprise to see a company retrenching in the face of huge cost increases and no certainty on future revenue or funding, be that from Nexus, local authorities, or central government.

The interdecks I think are somewhat unrelated - after all, they came off the X90 in Oxford, so it was more about GNE getting some basically-free cost-neutral use of an asset. It's not like they were anywhere near end-of-life but I'm guessing they were probably more challenging for GNE to maintain, and not necessarily as effective / efficient on the X9 / X10 route.

On that engineers' strike, if the engineers get more than the drivers, then the drivers will be in uproar. They've done really well to get a 10% deal, to be fair, though I reckon 10% probably doesn't cover the costs piling up in peoples' lives. You can see why the offer was rejected even if it was reasonable.

GNE made a loss of over half a million pounds in the 2020-21 financial year

Substantially better than the £5.2 million loss the previous year (19-20), and in light of a lost £628,000 on terminated contracts during COVID, and during a year where £25 million was invested in electric buses, it could have been a lot worse. But you're quite right to flag that this is probably going to look a lot worse when the 21-22 accounts come out.

Talk of a sale seems a bit premature, I reckon they'll try and keep the network intact and weather the storm through this restructure. Already got shot of a depot or two over the last few years, so I guess now it's about reducing management overhead in light of the reduced operation.

If you're advocating that Arriva North East is the way to run a business, we may have to disagree

My thoughts exactly! Not investing in fleet, including liveries, interiors, and marketing is a sure-fire way to show your customers you don't give them any thought. That's not to say quality of operation isn't important - as Stagecoach demonstrate, it's crucial - but marketing and livery isn't "wasted spend" if you want to try and increase the number of people using your product.

 

[NorthOxonian]

If GNE can't even make money on the 21 and the 56 when Stagecoach are making money on routes with much lower useage such as the X47 then there's something *majorly* wrong with GNE's financial management.

The main route I use is the 53/54 - regularly full and standing way outside the peaks (even fairly often in the evenings). Yet we've had our frequency cut twice in the last year because the route isn't "commercially viable" - it does make me wonder where on earth the money is going!

 

[Megafuss]

I don't think the marketing spend is the problem here. It's spit in a bucket compared to other costs. Doesn't help, sure, but equally if no-one had put any effort in on attracting people on to buses, then that would have been a much bigger sign of giving up. I would suspect that Martijn Gilbert didn't make all of those moves without the support of Group leadership, with costed budgets - and probably the changes in leadership combined with the continued pressure on bus operating costs leads to the current position.

Many of the projects intended to support bus travel in the north east appear to be on hold - there's not been much sign of the Transforming Cities funding out and about, and I can't see anyone here showing how GNE are squandering BSIP funding. There's still no certainty on this mythical £2 bus fare, so presumably that funding is also not secure. So no real surprise to see a company retrenching in the face of huge cost increases and no certainty on future revenue or funding, be that from Nexus, local authorities, or central government.

The interdecks I think are somewhat unrelated - after all, they came off the X90 in Oxford, so it was more about GNE getting some basically-free cost-neutral use of an asset. It's not like they were anywhere near end-of-life but I'm guessing they were probably more challenging for GNE to maintain, and not necessarily as effective / efficient on the X9 / X10 route.

On that engineers' strike, if the engineers get more than the drivers, then the drivers will be in uproar. They've done really well to get a 10% deal, to be fair, though I reckon 10% probably doesn't cover the costs piling up in peoples' lives. You can see why the offer was rejected even if it was reasonable.


Substantially better than the £5.2 million loss the previous year (19-20), and in light of a lost £628,000 on terminated contracts during COVID, and during a year where £25 million was invested in electric buses, it could have been a lot worse. But you're quite right to flag that this is probably going to look a lot worse when the 21-22 accounts come out.

Talk of a sale seems a bit premature, I reckon they'll try and keep the network intact and weather the storm through this restructure. Already got shot of a depot or two over the last few years, so I guess now it's about reducing management overhead in light of the reduced operation.


My thoughts exactly! Not investing in fleet, including liveries, interiors, and marketing is a sure-fire way to show your customers you don't give them any thought. That's not to say quality of operation isn't important - as Stagecoach demonstrate, it's crucial - but marketing and livery isn't "wasted spend" if you want to try and increase the number of people using your product.

I do wonder what impact the wider Go Ahead financial issue and departure of David Brown had at the time when Go North East we're needing to make their own choices.

 

[TheGrandWazoo]

I wonder if GNE are being primed for a sale?

Making redundancies in the middle of a financial year either means they are in a VERY bad place and/or they need to make the books look good for year end.

EYMS was spun off for a reason

I'd stop with the conspiracy thoughts if I were you. We are seeing First closing Southampton mid-year, First rationalising their regional management with resultant redundancies early in the year, Arriva closing depots including Jesmond.

Things are very challenging for operators across the country. They've just brought in Nigel Featham (formerly Arriva NE boss when they were decent) to effect changes to restore the position of the business. East Yorkshire doesn't have the same challenges so they can let that be managed locally, and arguably, it was still fairly locally managed anyhow.

The main route I use is the 53/54 - regularly full and standing way outside the peaks (even fairly often in the evenings). Yet we've had our frequency cut twice in the last year because the route isn't "commercially viable" - it does make me wonder where on earth the money is going!

Travel on a Durham to Seaham service at 1400 on a Saturday, or a Venture service at most times... There are some very good services and some much lesser ones

I don't think the marketing spend is the problem here. It's spit in a bucket compared to other costs. Doesn't help, sure, but equally if no-one had put any effort in on attracting people on to buses, then that would have been a much bigger sign of giving up. I would suspect that Martijn Gilbert didn't make all of those moves without the support of Group leadership, with costed budgets - and probably the changes in leadership combined with the continued pressure on bus operating costs leads to the current position.

Many of the projects intended to support bus travel in the north east appear to be on hold - there's not been much sign of the Transforming Cities funding out and about, and I can't see anyone here showing how GNE are squandering BSIP funding. There's still no certainty on this mythical £2 bus fare, so presumably that funding is also not secure. So no real surprise to see a company retrenching in the face of huge cost increases and no certainty on future revenue or funding, be that from Nexus, local authorities, or central government.

The interdecks I think are somewhat unrelated - after all, they came off the X90 in Oxford, so it was more about GNE getting some basically-free cost-neutral use of an asset. It's not like they were anywhere near end-of-life but I'm guessing they were probably more challenging for GNE to maintain, and not necessarily as effective / efficient on the X9 / X10 route.

On that engineers' strike, if the engineers get more than the drivers, then the drivers will be in uproar. They've done really well to get a 10% deal, to be fair, though I reckon 10% probably doesn't cover the costs piling up in peoples' lives. You can see why the offer was rejected even if it was reasonable.

Very fair points. The fact is that, according to the last company accounts (2021), passenger figures were much lower. Down by 40% and even if they rebounded a bit, that's a big drop. Why they would be more affected than any other operator, I'm not certain. Then again, Stagecoach have better territory and routes, and Arriva has declined to such an extent that they don't have much other than major trunk routes aside from local networks in Darlington and Teesside.

My point on the Interdecks was that, whilst they were obviously drafted in to give a home to some otherwise redundant fleet in the group, they weren't the best and I doubt it was cost neutral - they must have had a fair net book value on them. It was the e400mmc on the X84/X85 which was a more baffling move!

You're also right that Gilbert won't have been operating with no oversight from group. Expenditure will need to be signed off and financial targets met. However, he will have had some autonomy unless people are suggesting that a more top down, centralised approach should've been adopted?