Arriva North East: Coastliner 306 Launch

Arriva North East held a unique and innovative marketing publicity launch on October 14th 2014 to mark the £1.3 million investment into Jesmond's 306 service, which operates between Whitley Bay, Tynemouth, North Shields, Coast Road and Newcastle. Sand artists created a marvellous image in the sand - taking just under five hours to construct - which attracted the attention of many passers-by. The brand new vehicles were also in attendance, with the doors being opened to allow members of the public to be some of the very first people to look around the new buses. A small picnic was also had on-board one of the buses, with coffee also being handed out to warm everyone up.

 

Eight brand new Wright Streetlite DF/Wright Streetlite Micro-Hybrid vehicles have been purchased by Arriva for their 306 service which is based at Jesmond depot. The vehicles all have comfortable e-leather seating, and are Wi-Fi enabled. These vehicle are a Micro-Hybrid version of the Wright Streetlite, which is 11.5m in length. The Micro Hybrid recovers energy lost from braking to power the vehicle electrics and compressed air systems, saving up to 10% in fuel costs. The buses therefore carry a special livery to mark this, and are also branded "Coastliner" to integrate service 306 with service 308, which is allocated similar liveried environmentally-friendly Volvo B5LH/Wright Eclipse Gemini vehicles.

 

All eight vehicles are shown here in this (admittedly slightly poor quality) photograph, which was taken from a distance. Parked in fleet number order, from top to bottom, the vehicles were as follows:

- 1582 (NK64 EEV)

- 1583 (NK64 EEW)

- 1584 (NK64 EEX)

- 1585 (NK64 EEY)

- 1586 (NK64 EEZ)

- 1587 (NK64 EFA)

- 1588 (NK64 EEF)

- 1589 (NK64 EEG)

Done