Sitting at 112 miles and 7 stations, experience this new stretch of the east coast mainline, a very interesting and varied intercity run. The route originates in Doncaster in Yorkshire, then heads up to York, before a long straight high speed run through to Northallerton, and a scenic picturesque run from Darlington up to Newcastle Central Station, a large station in the north right by the Tyneside. Licensing - DTG once again have the LNER license, and the northern license, and the TPE license is government owned, which means DTG wouldn’t struggle to get the licensing which means the route would have a lot of variety Anticipation - it’s the ECML, as I said in my southern suggestion, it is extremely popular with the community and would be an instant hit. Mix - from 125mph intercity runs, to regional northern services and historical railtours, players can expect to see a huge balance of different types of legacy and contemporary traction on this route, as well as longer 1 hour runs on the fastest and one hour 35 on the slowest runs, (of the full route) Prominence - the ECML is the primary Anglo-Scottish high speed mainline between London and the Highlands/ the capital of Scotland. It is used by millions yearly and is an essential rail link. Video of the route (In real life): In Train Sim Classic Traction on the line LNER Class 801: they run the bulk of the intercity services on the east coast mainline. Service patterns may vary from fasts to semi fasts TPE Class 802: they also run intercity from South Yorkshire and the Pennines up through to Scotland in the North. Class 158s and 150s (northern) they run from Darlington onto the Tees Valley line, up through to Newcastle, as well as the York - Leeds (via church Fenton services) they can layer in at York station. Class 180s (GC): they can run non stop from south of Peterborough, through to Doncaster, and on towards thirsk, which is their last calling point before coming off the mainline towards the Durham coastline. Class 91 (LNER): depending on the era, they can run to Newcastle or they can run from Peterborough - York, giving more layers into York station. Stations Doncaster : this is the first stop on this extension. It is a major station located in South Yorkshire and is 80 miles from Peterborough and 156 miles from Kings Cross. It is served by LNER, Grand Central, Trans Pennine Express, hull trains, northern and East Midlands Trains/Railway York: this is a major station located in Yorkshire. It is served by LNER and great northern, and is the first stop for Highland Services to Inverness and Aberdeen, Middlesbrough services and is a major stopping point for all services. It is 112 miles from Peterborough and 188 miles away from London Kings Cross Thirsk: this is a stop located on the outskirts of Northern Yorkshire, it is served by Grand Central and Trans Pennine Express. It is 210 miles from King’s Cross and 134 miles away from Peterborough Northallerton: this is where the lines towards eaglescliff and the Durham coast split, it is served by LNER, TPE and Grand Central. With a train every 2hrs from LNER. It is 218 miles from Kings Cross and 142 miles away from Peterborough Darlington Darlington is a major station on the ECML. It is served by LNER, XC, TPE and northern. It is already present in TSW as a part of the tees valley line. It is 232 miles from King’s Cross and 156 miles from Peterborough Durham Durham is a beautiful city located south of Newcastle. It is served by LNER, Cross Country, Northern and TPE. Durham is 15 mins away from Newcastle and is 234 miles north of Kings Cross and 158 miles north of Peterborough Chester-Le-Street: A smaller station located south of Newcastle in the Tyneside county. It is served by trans-pennine express and northern. It is 250 miles north of King’s Cross and 174 miles north of Peterborough Newcastle Central: A very big station located in the Tyneside county serving the absolutely large station of Newcastle. It is served by LNER, Northern, XC, TPE and Lumo. It has links to the south, the Durham coastline, the line onto Carlisle and the Tyne and Wear metro. It is extremely busy and one of the largest stations if not the largest station in the north east right after Leeds Central Station. It is 268 miles north of Kings Cross and 192 miles north of Peterborough. Features - Intercity high speed runs - the 76 mile long racetrack between Doncaster and Darlington with York in the middle as a stopping point - a mixture of heritage and contemporary rolling stock - The Selby diversion, Britain’s first high speed line - A plethora of rolling stock - Slower northern regional services from Darlington onto Newcastle - York and Newcastle stations, both large grade 2 listed heritage structures. Conclusion: This is a good continuation from the current ECML and a good route to build up a modular ECML into train sim world.
I would love this route, you get a good mix of complete straight of 125mph while overtaking slower trains on the slows and some more slower paced action around Newcastle to darlington with some speed changes! Quick note about the Northern services between darlington and Newcastle is that there is only 4 passenger services and this section is usually used for Northern ECSs to Heaton depot, would be brilliant for a layer though! Would love to play this route in tsw4 anyway
Newcastle would be great for neat details like having a timetable with a mix of services which come in via both bridges. It's always a nice change when your train from Durham or York takes the high level bridge.
Yeah, it would be great with the high level bridge in use, as well as the occasional diversions via the Durham coast
It’s such a good route, I would love it to merge with Doncaster to Peterborough to make it a mega route
I love this route!! Would be so great as an extension for the current ecml! I'd love TPE in the game! Really good suggestion!
I'd suggest a modern TPE route as a smaller standalone. Glossop line-style, possibly York-Leeds, to introduce the rolling stock, and also model York station which can then be reused, then for the ECML you have the 800s as the basic native rolling stock with the route, and the other services layering in for owners of their respective routes, and the workload's reduced as you already have York, can update and modernise Darlington using the TVL version as a basis, though that's still a fair bit of overhauling, and then that leaves the big work of Newcastle (Lots of bridges to model), and then all the smaller stations along the way.
This ^^ I've been to the south and there scenery is so overhyped and bland, the North and scotland are much much better
I were you make class 800 standard followed by Class 802 and 180 locomotives. Class 801 is layered in with ECML Peterborough Doncaster route since everyone gets that as part of the base game
Honestly if I didn't have signals and stuff to look out for I would just close my blind after going through Peterborough as it would be more interesting to look at!
Yep, even when I rode ecml south as a passenger the only fun part was seeing the busy traffic, but apart from that the scenery is so bland and less interesting than up here
I also agree with this proposal. If it becomes long, it would be better to be able to select all sections and some sections.
Yup, they should be a 185 doing the 1tph Manchester airport to saltburn (York to Northallerton stopping at york on this route) along with some AI at Donny and going elsewhere at York. Also there's the tpe 802 service from york to newcastle calling at a few stops (1tph liverpool to newcastle, 1tp2h manchester to newcastle).
I’d prefer Kings Cross to Stevenage (51 miles). It’s more achievable. We could also use the Class 700 Thameslink as a layer too, which travels up to Peterborough. This route in the early stages has plenty of speed restrictions, so it would keep the player on their toes. It’s not just hitting acceleration, stay at 125mph and have nothing else to do but hit the AWS. Like we currently got.
I think matt#4801 can definitely vouch for me when I say, that route is boring as LOVEk. We don't need another GWE. It would literally be high speed for a long time with the scenary being boring suburban cityscapes and hardly any speed changes from what I heard. Trust me, this section would be far better!
that's just the speed limit slowly going up to 125mph. On this route (donny to newcastle) there is a few sections where it's completely flat 125mph straight which is the race track however after northallerton the route bends with plenty the speed limit going up and down even below 100 on some corners, not to mention the beautiful scenery in those sections (The view of Durham and the catherdral)
There’s no point of doing it up to Stevenage, either it goes up to Peterborough or don’t do it at all.
I totally agree with you. It needs to go to Peterborough. I just don’t think it’s in the ‘doable’ bracket for the dev team. It’s roughly 84 miles from King’s Cross to Peterborough. To Stevenage would be more realistic.
Swap the era to LNER Steam or BR Blue and I'm in. We've got a modern ECML route in the game, any other sections done in modern will just be more of the same. Doing future segments in other eras means more variety and allows people who prefer historical content to have a bit of mainline action too
KGX to PBO is 76 miles, it’s definitely within realistic, I will agree however that it would take a lot to do, plus we already have Peterboro in the game
Google tells me it’s 72 miles. If I could figure out how to get screenshots to upload on here I could prove my point. This is the information on google I have. How long is the train journey from Kings Cross to Peterborough? "); display: inline-block; height: 24px; width: 24px; transform: rotateZ(-180deg);"> around 1 hour 12 minutes On average, it takes around 1 hour 12 minutes to travel from London Kings Cross to Peterborough by train, the fastest services can get you there in as little as 44 minutes though. You'll usually find 87 trains per day running along the 72 miles (116 km) route between these two destinations.
I think it would be better to see ECML in a different era, as we’ve already got an ECML route set in the modern day and Class 91s only run south of York so would probably work better as DLC for the pre-existing route, the Voyagers would work better I’d say
Also, matt#4801 is right, it is only 72 miles if measured by how the crow flies, which isn’t all that accurate when talking about train distances.
I am afraid to say Google is wrong, Peterborough to Cross is (to the closest mile) 76 miles. I have it right in front of me in my sectional appendix, which is a much more reliable source than Google.
But shouldn't the purpose be to do a KGX to Peterborough route and then that way if you wanted to you could drive a train from KGX to Peterborough and then Peterborough to Doncaster, albeit via different dlc?
What you did here was extend TSW4 Peterborough Doncaster to York and then extend it over the TSC ECML Newcastle-upon-Tyne York segment. All in all you want TSC ECML Peterborough to Newcastle-upon-Tyne via York and Doncaster remade for TSW 4.
Why not, I mean who knows whether it's possible or not? Atleast with it we get York for the famous NRM and the RHTT Sidings, plus I do think connecting Peterborough and Newark North Gate to Nottingham would definitely make many more things possible.
