Time to tackle the second of the three routes that I mentioned in the thread talking about potential 'Rush Hour' style routes in TSW2 that are coming as part of TS 2022 and this next one is a fairly recent route that came out back in March and in the poll that I did, it was actually quite popular. Maybe not quite popular enough to do a more detailed thread on it at the time, but certainly popular enough to see that people would like to see this route in TSW2 and that is the Birmingham Cross City Line, starting at Lichfield Trent Valley, travelling through Birmingham New Street and ending up at either Bromsgrove or Redditch. But before we go too far, lets have a quick reminder first... What he said in that post See this link here for all the other routes that featured and to vote in the poll if you haven't already. So which that out the way, let's get into this. The Route Itself Now like I said at the beginning, this route came to TS Classic back in March earlier this year, and is going to be part of the three routes that come with TS 2022 coming out later this week. Now I don't have this route personally, but from what I could gather, the reception for this route when it came was... not great... nor terrible... for short it was kinda a mixed bag, with the main criticism seemingly going to how the main star loco was executed in that game that I will bring up later. But despite the mixed reception this route got, it's still a popular suggestion for a potential TSW2 version, and as we will get into, there's a lot about this route that would make such a version very appealing. I've even thrown in a few ideas of my own which, if they were implemented, would really enhance the overall experience of this route. But before we go on further, here is a general of what I think route would look like. Map of the Whole Route Section out of Bromsgrove & Redditch towards Kings Norton Section around Birmingham New Street Section heading up to Lichfeld Trent Valley So going through the general stats of what you see here, the total length of the route is 45.9 Miles (73.8 km). This includes the main route which is 36.8 Miles (59.3 km) long, including the 5 Mile (8 km) branch to Redditch, the 5.9 Mile (9.6 km) Camp Hill Line to Freightliner Birmingham at Landor Street with an additional 1.1 Miles (1.7 km) of additional lines that come with it and the 2 Mile (3.3 km) branch to Soho TMD. For stations, there are 25 of them in total as well as 1 depot and yard each for both Soho TMD and the aforementioned yard at Landor Street. Now when looking at this route, if I could liken this route to any other TSW2 route we have right now, it would be the Cathcart Circle Line. I say this because I feel like both that, and this route, actually have quite a lot in common. They both have a main loco that are 3 cars long, are both somewhat metro lines that either pass through or terminate at a major UK railway station, have depots that are quite disconnected from the main route, both feature more than one end point, with Cathcart Circle being both Neilston & Newton, while this routes end points being Bromsgrove & Redditch and both routes also feature the West Coast Main Line in some capacity, Cathcart Circles being the main terminal at Glasgow Central and Newton and this route being at Birmingham New Street and at Lichfeld Trent Valley. They might have a few differences with Cathcart having an entire circle that trains go around while this route... doesn't (I mean, this route kinda has a circle, but it's not in same way as Cathcart, but more on that later), but I feel there's more in common between the two routes than you might think. Now while this route would be pretty much the entire thing between Lichfeld, Bromsgrove & Redditch, I have also added in a few extra bits that were not present in the TS Classic version to really get even more out of and enhance the overall experience of this route. The first additional is the branch up to Soho TMD, which the where the main units that serve this route are stored/maintained. Now I don't think it was on the TS Classic version of this route, but by having it here will allow this route to have depot services rather than it's whole timetable just being full of line runs, giving this route a bit more service options. But perhaps the biggest edition that I have added to this suggestion, as you have seen in the map I have shown you, is the Camp Hill Line that goes to the Freightliner Terminal at Landor Street. Now I want to include freight services on this route as one of it's most iconic features is the Lickey Incline, the steepest sustained section of main-line railway in the UK, which features freight trains having a banker loco assisting it up the steep section out of Bromsgrove as far as Blackwell, where the banker detaches and the freight train continues on from there. Now having this been an additional layer from another route wouldn't really do this part much justice so I thought it would be better to have a few freight locos and wagons accompany this route in order to get the full freight and banking experience on this part of the route. But at the same time, most freight trains turn off the route after Kings Norton, so it wouldn't really be a worthwhile freight experience if all it was was just driving freight trains between Kings Norton and Bromsgrove and that's it. So by adding in the Camp Hill Line to Landor Street, it not only gives freight trains a more convenient place to stop or go, but also adds a few more driving miles onto freight services, giving this route a much more worthwhile freight experience. So with that said, let's take a break from talking about this route and see a couple of pictures of what this route looks like in real life. Pictures of the route in real life Lichfield Trent Valley Four Oaks Birmingham New Street Soho TMD Freightliner Birmingham (Landor Street) Kings Norton Barnt Green Redditch Lickey Incline Bromsgrove Available Locos Now when talking about locos, only two that would actuallycome with this route. One is a passenger loco and the other is a freight loco. One loco is new to TSW2, the other is reused with a few minor differences. Let's begin with the new loco which I think is going to be pretty obvious. West Midlands Railway BR Class 323 Yep, I think you saw this one coming from far away. Introduced in 1994 as the last trains to enter service under British Rail before it was privatised, these units have been the forefront of services on this route for nearly 30 years. 43 of them where built in total with 26 of them ending up at what would become the West Midland Railway division of West Midlands Trains and are probably best know for distinct acceleration/deceleration sounds that they make via their traction motors. For services they would actually do on this route, it would a mixed of full lines runs between either Bromsgrove or Redditch up to Lichfield Trent Valley or services that only go as far as Four Oaks. They would also service a small section between Birmingham New Street and Aston as part of the Walsall-Wolverhampton service which passes through that part of the route. DB/EWS BR Class 66/0 Now while this loco is reused from the likes of East Coastway and Great Western Express, it wouldn't be the exact same the locos in those routes. Now GWE has the 66 in both the DB and EWS liveries (The later coming via a post-release update), East Coastway just has the EWS livery. This version would be in the EWS livery, but with DB logos on the front and side of the cab. The freight services they would operate on this route would be coil trains using the following selection of wagons. BYA IHA (Think of it as a lower down version of the Shimmns-TTU's already available in routes such as Ruhr-Sieg Nord & Rhein-Ruhr Osten) BZA (Similar to the BBA's available with Tees Valley) All of these services would operate between Landor Street and Bromsgrove with Northbound services receiving a banker up the Lickey Incline as far as Blacwell, which would be stationed down at Bromsgrove. Any additional layers?/How to deal with Birmingham New Street Now I have stated earlier that this route has a lot in common with the Cathcart Circle Line, but this also applies to one of it's biggest problems; A general lack of services in and out of it's biggest and busiest point. For Cathcart, there's Glasgow Central and here, it's Birmingham New Street. Now while the TS Classic version did come with a selection of 350's that, while they don't actually run on this route in real life, would help to increase traffic in that area. Now making that loco for this route would be pointless as A: It's doesn't run anywhere else on this route and B: We've already used up the '1 new loco per route' allocation we normally get with new TSW2 routes with the 323. So what I could see happen with this route is that, while Birmingham New Street wouldn't be all that busy when it first came out, over time, as more locos that run around here come to TSW2, they would add AI traffic to help liven up the atmosphere around Birmingham, something that hopefully will happen with Cathcart Circle one day. For additional layers, I could only think up of one, a rail tour service using the rolling stock from Northern Trans-Pennine. This rail tour would come in from Bromsgrove, run to Lichfield Trent Valley and then go out the other side and then come back a few hours later doing the same route in reverse. This service would be operate by all the BR locos currently available in TSW2, coming from routes such as Northern Trans-Pennine, Tees Valley Line and the 52 from Diesel Legends of the Great Western. Future Loco Add-Ons Into the final part now and surprisingly, this route actually has more loco add-on potential than one might think. It might not seem it at first, but there are 3 more locos that could be added to this route from what currently operates on it now, and what is coming to this route in the future. West Midlands Railway BR Class 172 'Turbostar' I kinda feel like that TSW2 is long overdue a Turbostar of some kind making an appearance on any route. Now I had a choice between this and 170 to feature as a loco add-on for this route, but I decided to go with this one as it features the Electrostar style gangways, which makes it stand out from other Turbostar variants. They would mainly operate in the bottom portion of the route between Birmingham New Street and Bromsgrove, operating Malvern Line services to Hereford. This would help bring some much needed variety and traffic to the route, especially around the Birmingham portion of the route. DRS BR Class 66/4 I know what your thinking 'But you already have a 66 with this route, why make another one as a loco add-on?'. Well while this is just another 66, regardless of how it happens, either via a loco add-on or coming from another route that features this loco, it would come in the DRS livery and would add even more freight to the route, Specifically, intermodal traffic using IKA Container Wagons as seen down below. These services would operate between Bromsgrove and Landor Street, but as far as I'm awae, will not require a banker up the Lickey Incline, adding some variety to the freight services on this route. West Midlands Railway BR Class 730/0 'Aventra' Now while the 323's have been staple of services on this route for nearly 30 years, their time is short, as they are due to be replace by these new Aventra units due to enter service next year. The unit that would come to this route would be the 3 car variant and would sub into the existing 323 services available with this route, representing an upcoming time as the unit that comes with this route gets phased out in favour of new rolling stock. Conclusion Maybe when it comes to talking about 'Rush Hour' routes, this route isn't quite on the same level as other routes that I have talked about in the past, but I think it would still be a worthwhile edition to TSW2. It's a decently long route, has plenty of stations including what is the busiest station in the UK outside of London, has a few options when it comes to service patterns and if the extra bits I've added to this suggestion do happen, it would help make this even better than what is currently available on TS Classic. I've said this a lot throughout this suggestion, but there's a lot about this route that feels comparable to Cathcart Circle from the way the route is laid out to the loco that comes with this route. But if whoever decides to make this route manages to get this right, I feel like this route has even more potential than what that route could ever offer in terms of services, opportunities and what is probably this routes biggest draw, the famous Lickey Incline. With that section promising to offer an experience that has not yet been seen from a UK route yet and has featured in routes from the other two main countries TSW2 has represented such as Main Spessart Bahn and the upgraded Sand Patch Grade. It might seem like this route isn't quite on the same level compared to other 'Rush Hour' style route suggestions, but for what it is, and if it's done currently, it would certainly offer one of most fun and intriguing experiences from a TSW2 route. As always, if you have any ideas that you would like to see on this route, or you feel like there's something that can be done differently with this route, be sure to let me know in the replies down below. That's all from me, and I'll see you for one last route suggestion (for now) coming very soon. Images Sources: http://www.railaroundbirmingham.co.uk/Stations/lichfield_trent_valley.php https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Oaks_railway_station https://www.railtechnologymagazine.com/Rail-News/transformed-birmingham-new-street-opens-its-doors https://www.flickr.com/photos/56394872@N06/17056006157 https://www.gwrr.co.uk/about/locations/freightliner-birmingham/ https://www.yelp.com/biz/kings-norton-rail-station-birmingham https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barnt_Green_railway_station https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redditch_railway_station https://www.flickr.com/photos/robmcrorie/48774903693 https://anonw.com/2016/07/14/the-new-bromsgrove-station/dscn8593-2/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Rail_Class_323 https://www.flickr.com/photos/150500212@N02/50294224877/ https://gingespotting.smugmug.com/Wagons/B-TOPSCode/BYA/i-K9nkT6P https://wagons-library.weebly.com/iha.html https://wagons-library.weebly.com/bza.html https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Rail_Class_172 https://www.flickr.com/photos/martin65/50222523346/ https://wagons-library.weebly.com/ika.html https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Rail_Class_730
Nice. I suggested the southern portion of this a while ago (original thread here) and it always seemed like it would be the perfect route to include an extension of sorts through a loco DLC because the Turbostars run the whole New Street to Bromsgrove route, then continue out to Worcester, Malvern and beyond, which could add new traffic and rail without affecting any of the existing timetabled electric services — provided it was planned from the start. CrossCountry Voyager services could do something similar, using the line through Birmingham before getting out to high speed countryside out towards Worcester Parkway and Cheltenham/Bristol. Continuing north for the rest of the route to Lichfield and including the Freightliner yard would be excellent options too.
My only problem with this suggestion is that there's no 350 or CrossCountry stock, especially considering there's already a HST model in existance
The 350s don't run on this route and the CrossCountry services that pass through it are mostly Voyagers, not many HSTs - see my previous post.
So the 350's don't run through Birmingham New Street? News to me. Also I suggested HST as they've already been made by Dovetail and would be more likely that they just reskin the GWE one rather than create a new model for the 220/221
Yes, they also run the Walsall services up to Aston. Wouldn't it be boring if New Street would be only 323's and the occasional HST
Yes, which is why you could also include the whole series of trains that the OP and I have suggested, which are used on the full Cross City line.
