An idea I had the other day was for Manchester Victoria and Blackburn as the "hub" stations, as there are two routes and services between them. One is the East Lancashire branch line calling at Salford Central, Salford Crescent, Bolton, Hall i' th' Wood, Bromley Cross, Entwistle (a request stop), Darwen and Blackburn (platform 1) before continuing to Clitheroe (or stopping in platform 2 which is a straight through platform or platform 3, a bank platform, before turning back to Manchester), but also a round service which passes through Moston,Mills, Hill, Castleton, Rochdale, Todmorden (Where the driver changes ends), Todmorden, Burnley Manchester Road, Rose Grove, Accrington and terminating at Blackburn (Platform 4). There is also a service from Blackburn via Bolton up to Rochdale, and an occasional service from Blackburn via Rochdale to Wigan, which passes through Bolton, meaning some of these services can be quite long and challenging. These are usually run using either a class 158 Sprinter or a class 195 DMU, but were also run with Pacers at times until their withdrawal in 2020. There are also some stopping services between Manchester and Bolton (onward to Wigan) calling at some smaller stations between (Moses Gate, Farnworth, Kearsley, Clifton), as well as a service from Blackburn to Burnley which continues onward to Nelson & Colne (extra stops are Rishton, Church & Oswaldtwistle, Huncoat, and Hapton before leaving the line at Rose Grove to pass through Burnley Central. These stations could be midelled in game, used in scenario planner and given the smaller local stopper routes by purchasing a Pacer loco pack. Possible Pacer swcenarios could also be getting drafted in to run on the longer routes while the Sprinters and 195s are being serviced The only possible drawbacks I could see would be licensing with Northern trains due to their being under government operation at the moment and there are sometimes some TPX services at Victoria running from Newcastle to Liverpool/Manchester Airport There'd be some interesting scenery with Entwistle Reservoir, Todmorden is in a really nice valley, the Metrolink line and depot on the way out of Victoria toward Rochdale (another possible licensing hurdle), and some viaducts near Victoria, Bolton, and Accrington
