Arriva North East

[bramptontrev]

RE: Arriva North East
Re Cross Pennine 685 Newcastle<>Carlisle.

Change of vehicles. Today (Tues 04 April 2017) we had Sapphire VDL 1512 NL63VRF working the 1415 Carlisle->Newcastle (arr 1633) (yesterday (Mon 03 April 2017) it was VDL 1481) and even more interesting and going the other way was a double decker, Volvo B7TL/Wright Eclipse Gemini 7493 LF02PRZ working the 1245 Newcastle-<Carlisle(arr 1505) and 1515 Carlisle->Newcastle.

There now appears to be a regular double deck round trip. 7492 has been seen - various photos on flickr. Today it was 7493.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/northern156/33436391302/ - Arriva North East's Jesmond-based Volvo B7TL/ Wright Gemini 7492 LF02PKX is seen passing Haltwhistle's West End Industrial Estate with a Cross Pennine service 685 from Carlisle to Newcastle.
This is probably the third or fourth time a decker has ever worked the full route to Carlisle; with previous versions of the route having a low bridge on some variations. Coupled with this are some low trees at Corbridge however this is not an issue any more.
A decker is now reportedly booked on the 1245 from Newcastle; forming the 1515 from Carlisle which is used by various schoolchildren from Brampton into Northumberland.

AND

https://www.flickr.com/photos/paulgrindley/33631174401/ Owing to the number of school children (over 50) from William Howard School who are travelling on the 685 bus service (15.15 from Carlisle) Arriva buses have recently taken the decision to run a double decker bus on the 12.45 from Newcastle to Carlisle which returns at 15.15.