Today I would like to suggest another route for rebuild in the same vain as SEHS. East Coastway is another early route that was built shorter than was achievable in more recent releases. Firstly I think that BML traffic needs adding around Brighton as AI. Brighton is currently almost deserted even though we have stock to occupy it. Next is the strangely absent Wivelsfield branch which would likely work better with ECW than BML due to the performance issues on the latter. Lastly, I believe that the route should be extended to Hastings and Ore so that we finally have a complete East Coastway route. This suggestion would see an additional 12 stations, many more services, and more playable mileage.
You can even go further make it 61 miles making the marshlink line Ashford to Hastings that way you can simply combine ECW with SEHS making that 151 miles. Creating a southern region Network
If you are thinking of doing an ECW extension to Hastings/Ore, include the Class 171 for Marshlink services and get 205001 in game as DLC, best of both worlds then
Well I would prefer Hastings to Ashford with a Class 205 or Class 207 Thumper! I do believe in the latter days of Marshlink Thumper operation some services ran through to Eastbourne and there were also ECS moves from and to Selhurst via Lewes and Wivelsfield for service start up and shut down.
Plenty of new services to add for this: Vic to Eastbourne/Ore services with 377s Couple of Railtours, such as Railtours to Newhaven Marine, New freight services to Newhaven Marine Aggregates terminal. Freight can be extended to Wivelsfield, Route learning services on Class 700 from Wivelsfield to Brighton via Lewes, Class 387 substitute services on the Hastings to Brighton services. Additional Class 73 RHTT services
Not sure if it will be a good value for money when developing a route like this. This isn't comparing to large scale routes such as Southeastern High Speed, Boston Sprinter Dresden etc. These routes have a high amount of services to play allowing more play time so it's more logical they get upgrades then a smaller route like this. The least improvements I can only see for the East Coastway improved sound effects for the 377's as they are on London Commuter, additional Victoria services added between Lewes and Eastbourne and some minor timetable admemdents to only allow 1tph stopping at Southease rather than 2 as per reality
I agree extending to Ashford makes more sense, especially as we already have Ashford in-game from SEHS. The Class 171 would also add something a bit different (diesel trains in a predominantly 3rd rail electric region).
