Go North East invests over £4m into popular bus service for Angel of the North anniversary

Go North East has invested £4.5m on 19 bigger, ‘greener’ double-deck buses for its Newcastle to Chester-le-Street service.

Coinciding with the upcoming 20th birthday of the Angel of the North in February, Go North East is easing ‘popular demand’ on its Angel 21 service, which will feature ‘Angel 20’ badges celebrating the milestone. The buses should accommodate 16 extra passengers per hour.

Go North East’s managing director, Kevin Carr, said: “2017 was a huge year of investment for us and we are delighted to continue this into 2018.

“This significant boost to our Angel services comes at a key time as we look to support Gateshead Council with its year-long celebrations to commemorate the Angel of the North’s 20th birthday, while also supporting our aim of having the greenest bus fleet in the country.”

The buses now offer upper-deck tables featuring casino and board game designs, larger LED ‘next stop’ announcement displays, USB connections and free Wifi - the additions were made by Go North East following its customer feedback.

As well as this, contactless payments can be taken on board.

Following an investment of over £10m in new vehicles and upgrades in 2017, the significant cash injection has put 19 brand new vehicles on the road, featuring the latest, most environmentally-friendly Euro 6 stop/start engines.

Fitted with a micro-hybrid system, they also save 21 per cent fuel and carbon dioxide.

In an effort to ensure the millions of passengers using Go North East services each year benefit from an undisrupted service, the investment includes a further two spare double-deck buses built to the same specification as the new Angel vehicles.

No timetable changes have been made, therefore Angel customers can travel on the new buses every seven to eight minutes between Newcastle and Chester-le-Street, with services continuing to Durham every 15 minutes.