You know, these forums can be a fun place sometimes. You make a big post talking about potential 'Rush Hour' routes, add in a big poll with all those routes featured with it, do in-depth posts on the more popular suggestions, leave it for a while, come back to write posts for a few routes that featured in that thread that coming as part of TS 2022, you start writing the last of three by saying this will be last suggestion to come from that thread and it's time to move on from it... …only for what you have been doing in the last few days to spark interest in that poll again as more people vote for which of those routes they would most like to see in TSW2, to the point where some of those routes which I didn't do in-depths post on them at the time, are now in a position where I can do in-depth suggestions post of them now. I love this forum sometimes. But in all seriousness, I'm not complaining about it, because I means I get to talk about some more promising routes that featured on that thread and with this one I have for you today, I have been particularly excited to talk about. Ever since I first came up with the initial concept for it, I have been wanting to talk about this route for a very long time, but while it was quite a popular suggestion, I wasn't quite popular enough for me to do an in-depth thread on it. But after a spike in popularity, It is now in a position where I can finally talk about what is probably one of the most promising suggestion that I have made so far, and that is the Great Eastern Main Line between London Liverpool Street and Ipswich. But as always, before we begin... What he said in that post Rest of the routes that featured and the poll can be access by clicking on the link here. Right, let's not waste any more time, let's get into this! The Route Itself Now I should start by mentioning that this route, like with all the suggestions that I have made so far, is based on the TS Classic version that was released back in the early days of Train Simulator in 2013. Now I don't have this route personally, but it looks like a route that deserves to be looked upon in the same light as routes such as Brighton Main Line, East Coast Main South and so many more routes that came out during that time. The route itself is decently long and has a lot of extra parts that really enhance the route, both in that version, and with a potential TSW2 version. But what really makes this route appealing to TSW2 is everything that has happened to the real life route since that version of the route got made. You see, the first section of the route up to Shenfield will soon be part of Crossrail and services on that regard are already running on this section under TfL Rail. This section is probably the busiest part of the route, something that could be comparable to the likes of Great Western Express, Hauptstrecke München – Augsburg and even the upcoming Brighton Main Line, with tons of services traversing this section every hour. Both from TfL Rail and also from the main operator of the route, Greater Anglia, plus any additional freight services that many run during that time of the day. The later of which is really what would put this route above many other TSW2 routes set out of London as this route has a large freight presence and as you will see, I have added in parts to this route to really enhance and get the most out of the freight experience on this route. So to give you all an idea on how this route would look like, as always, I have a made a map of the route, which you can see down below. Map of the Whole Route Section between Hatfield Peveral & Colchester (Including branch lines to Braintree & Colchester Town) Section around Ipswich Section between Ipswich & Felixstowe To give you all some stats, the total length of the route you see here is 97 Miles (156.1 km). This includes the main line between London Liverpool Street and Ipswich (68.4 Miles or 110 km), the 6.2 Mile (10 km) branch to Braintree, the 1.5 Mile (2.5 km) branch to Colchester Town and the 15.7 Mile (25.2 km) branch to Felixstowe, plus the 5.3 Miles (8.5 km) of track that make up the Port of Felixstowe. The route also has 34 stations (including the disused station at Felixstowe Beach), 4 main passenger depots (Ilford, Gidea Park, Colchester & Ipswich) and 3 freight yards (one at Ipswich and two on both of North and South sides of Felixstowe Port). So a lot to digest here, but for starters, of course you have that main section out of Liverpool Street up to Shenfield which, like I said earlier, is probably the busiest parts of the route. Plus that section also passes through Stratford, a huge interchange for multiple other lines going in, out and around London, such as the Central and Jubilee Lines on the London Underground, the Docklands Light Railway and the North London Line section of the London Overground, which I have already done a suggestion thread on. The route does quieten down after Shenfield, but still passes through some fairly large towns such as Chelmsford, Colchester and the end destination at Ipswich (for passenger services that is). But what I think is probably the biggest selling point here are the 3 branch lines that this route has the potential to offer, all three of them are also on the TS Classic version of this route. The first of which is the electrified single-track branch to Braintree. This branch has 3 other stations (White Notley, Cressing & Braintree Freeport) and is usually served by 1 train an hour coming all the way from London Liverpool Street. This is why I decided to include this section as part of the route in order to get the full service rather than just ending at Witham and not being able to drive the final few miles to Braintree with that service. This is same case with the next branch, the spur to Colchester Town. As it is just a small spur, it makes sense to include it as it also served by 1 train from Liverpool Street and hour, plus two other services that either just go in-between the two stations at Colchester or then reverses at Colchester Town and goes on towards Walton-on-the-Naze. But onto the biggest branch on this route, now I will say that this route being the section between London and Ipswich might actually be slight misleading. Now I wouldn't change this as when solely talking about the Great Eastern Main Line, these are the two main destinations on this route. What I mean by slightly misleading is that while the main end of the line is Ipswich, the route actually continues on along the branch line to Felixstowe and of course, the Port of Felixstowe, the busiest container port in the UK. Now while all of the stations along this section would be represented, it wouldn't be serve by passenger trains, at least not at release, as this route would come with a passenger loco capable of running on that section as it is a diesel only section. But it would be served by freight trains accessing the Port of Felixstowe. This section was in the TS Classic version, but didn't have any freight locos to go along side it with the route, but trust me, I vision that this route would come with a freight loco, as we will get too. I also vision that this route would also be the route to introduce container loading as some of yards around here have container cranes that run along the length of the yard, and since freight services come here, it would be ideal to have freight services come here, have the cranes load and unload the various containers dotted along the train, and once done, and then that freight service leaves once the cranes have done there job, but I talk about how that might work later. But for now, let's take a moment to look into some real life pictures of the route. Pictures of the route in real life London Liverpool Street Stratford Shenfield Chelmsford Witham Braintree Colchester Colchester Town Ipswich Port of Felixstowe Available Locos Now before I do get into the locos here, I would like to mention the time frame in which this route would be set in. I envision that this route would be set in around early to mid 2019. this is important because I want to set this route before the new Greater Anglia rolling stock was introduced on this route, so that means this route will not have a 720 or either the 745 or 755. But what it does mean is that this route can have a bit more variety in terms of the rolling stock that comes with this route and to what locos can come as add-ons in the future. For the sake of what comes with the route, I have 3 locos I mind for this part. Each of these represent a different rail operator that runs on this route. Greater Anglia BR Class 360/1 It was the main loco that came with the TS Classic version of this route, so it makes sense to make it the star loco of this version of the route. These units are part of the Siemens Desiro family, but do not have end gangways unlike the 350's, 444's and the 450's. These were introduced in 2003 to replace the old slam door stock that used to run on this route and were a big part of commuter services out of Liverpool Street until they were replaced by the 720's in 2020/21. From there, they were upgraded for 110 mph running and put into service with East Midlands Railway on their new electrified St Pancras-Corby services. But as this route is set before they were replaced, we can include them here and the services they would operate would be a variety of commuter services coming out of Liverpool Street down the main line to the following destinations: Braintree Colchester (turns off and bypasses Colchester Town towards Clacton-on-Sea) Colchester Town Ipswich (Full line runs) All of the services you have just seen here all happen just once an hour on each direction. They would also add the small services between Colchester and Colchester Town which happen twice per hour. One that only goes between the two stations and another that reverses at Colchester Town and continues on towards Walton-on-the-Naze. Now in the TS Classic version, this was the only loco include with this route. But with a potential TSW2 version, we have a lot more options for locos to come alongside this one, starting with... TfL Rail BR Class 315 These would help compliment the 360/1's coming out of Liverpool Street. They are similar to the 314's we already have and the 313's that we are getting soon, but they are 4 cars long instead of 3 cars long. They used to work for Greater Angila, but in around 2015, they were all either transferred to London Overground or TfL Rail, the later of which would be the one that is represented here. Now while they have been since withdrawn and replaced by newer rolling stock, as with the previous loco, the time frame in which this route is set in allows these locos to be part of this route. They would be limited to just running between Liverpool Street and Shenfield, but these services happen 8 times-an-hour in each direction, so these would make up the bulk of the services running on this route. Freightliner BR Class 66/5 Well I promised a freight loco and here it is, a I feel like it time for another UK freight operator in TSW2 and one that I feel is long overdue to come to TSW2. The 66 featured here would come in the old Yellow and Green livery, plus 66587 in the pink 'As One We Can' Livery, as seen below: This would loco to take charge of Intermodal freight services travelling up to Felixstowe, joining the route at Stratford and carrying on from there. They would also carry out shunting services at Felixstowe, organising the wagons to the various yards where the container cranes can unload those bound for a ship and load those bound for various destinations across the UK. Once finished, they would organise the wagons together and travel back to Stratford and then out of the map to whether that service is going towards. These services would operated with FEA Intermodal Wagons, carrying and mixed of unbranded and branded containers such as Hamburg Süd, Hapag-Lloyd and of course, ONE. Speaking of containers, since this route won't have much in the way of additional layers from other routes apart from maybe a rail tour service from Northern Trans-Pennine, I wanted to use this time to try and describe how container loading/unloading might work on TSW2. How would container loading/unloading work on this route/in TSW2? I'll keep this brief to make sure this suggestion doesn't go on for too long and I might make a more in-depth post about container loading/unloading some other time, but this is just a basic idea of how it might work. So what I was think was that you would pull your train up to a yard that has a container crane in it. The yard would already have stacks of containers that would need loading, and spaces for where containers can be offload from arriving trains. For here, container loading/unloading would happen in one of two ways. Option A: It works similar to passenger loading/unloading where it happens automatically by pressing the same buttons that you would press if you where opening or closing the doors on a passenger train (Pressing the TAB key to access the door options if you are on PC, or by pressing the left/right D-Pad if you are on an Xbox/PS controller) Option B: This might be a bit extreme, but you could climb down from the loco cab, go up into the operating cab of the crane and actually load and unload the containers yourself using the controls available on the crane. Maybe that second option is a bit out of TSW2's reach, but it would honestly be a cool experience to have in TSW2 to give players something more to do than just driving trains all the time. Future Loco Add-Ons Into the final part now, and when talking about this section, there are so many locos that could be added to this route after it had been release. But since I don't want to make this section too long, I am going to suggest here 4 locos that could be added to this route in the future. All of which would either add an entirely new experience to this route or add a new dynamic to an already existing service. Now first, I think there's an obvious one here that I feel that this route wouldn't be complete with it. Greater Anglia BR Class 90+Mark 3 Coaches & DVT Now the reason didn't include this loco with the main route is because we have already used up the allocation of one new loco per new route with he 360/1, which I thought was a more fitting new loco as it was the loco featured with the TS Classic version of that route. But that's not to say this loco would never be on the cards one day as I have it here as a loco add-on for the future. But anways, this loco were the mainstay of intercity services on this route up until they were replaced by the 745's in 2020. These services happen twice every hour in each direction between Liverpool Street and Ipswich with one making two stops at Colchester and Manningtree and the other making additional stops at Stratford and Chelmsford. These services would operated with Mark 3 coaching stock and the Driving Van Trailer, offering some different driving experiences on this route with this loco. Greater Anglia BR Class 321/3 Speaking of mainstay locos, this would be the other unit to help compliment the 360/1 already available with this route. These units have been serving commuter services on overhead catenary routes across the UK for over 30 years, with Greater Anglia being not only one of their more prominent areas, but also the only place on the UK rail network (as of typing this) where they are still operating to this day, with some of fleet being upgraded as part of the Renatus project, which includes a new livery and upgrading the interior with new seating arrangements and a new first class, which would also be the version represented in this loco add-on. While they would sub into the existing 360 services on this route, they would also add some Greater Anglia services that happen 3 times-an-hour in each direction, travel up to Shenfield and then turn off towards Southend Victoria, making an already busy part of the route even busier. Greater Anglia BR Class 156 Now while Felixstowe wouldn't see any passenger services at release, they would eventually be added with this loco. Known as Super Sprinters, these have been seen of many regional routes across the UK with Greater Anglia being no exception until being replace by the 755 in early 2020 and being moved on the East Midlands Railway to boost their existing 156 fleet. But it wouldn't just be Ipswich-Felixstowe services that they would add. They would also add various AI traffic, firstly around Ipswich to represent the various other routes they operate out of there, and secondly around Marks Tey representing services that travel along the branch line to Sudbury (which is a diesel line which explains why it's not represented as part of this route) Freightliner BR Class 86 Now while freight operations on this route would be handled by a 66 in Freightliner livery, it isn't the main freight on this route in real life, as that honour would go to these locos. The oldest in the fleet are as good as over 50 years old, but still served freight services in the UK well until being put into storage in favour of additional 90 freed up by their displacement from Greater Anglia. The freight services they would operate would be similar to what's already available, but they would only operate these services with two of them double-heading and only travel as far as Ipswich before changing to diesel power for the final leg to Felixstowe Port and subsequently taking over from Diesel power for the return leg to Stratford. Conclusion on the next post...
Conclusion So another route that ended up having to taking two whole posts and honestly, I'm not complain here because out of all of routes that featured in that thread talking about potential 'Rush Hour' style routes, this one is not only my favourite of all those routes, but also the route that I would most like to see in TSW2. Ever since I made the initial pitch for that thread, I have been dying to talk about this route for a long time and now that I've had the chance to talk about it, I can safely say, I am proud of the suggestion I've come up with here. I know people have gone on about adapting various main lines out of London for TSW2 such as the South Western, the upcoming Brighton, East/West Coast and an extended Great Western, but this one doesn't seem to come up quite as much as those routes, but from going through we have just seen, this route offers just as more as what those routes offer. In some aspects, it outdoes those routes with a decently long route with a few branches going off the route, a large and diverse timetable with plenty of traffic running in and out of it's main station, what could be one of the best freight experiences on any TSW2 route and a large, diverse roster of locos both with the route and what could come via future loco add-ons. I mean, even on that last point, those 4 I listed doesn't even scratch the surface of how many locos could be added to this route after it had been release, but as I don't want to make this suggestion too long, and I've already used up the number of images I can put on a single post, I had to limit it to just the 4 you have seen here. Now at the beginning, I mentioned that this route is a lot like routes such as Great Western Express, Hauptstrecke München – Augsburg and the upcoming Brighton Main Line, especially that first section out of Liverpool Street towards Shenfield. But out of those routes, the one that feels the most like this route is actually Great Western Express. I say this because of the locos that route offers. You see, with that route, it has a fast express passenger loco, a slower commuter loco and a freight loco. Now while this route doesn't have a express loco come with the route (That comes via a loco add-on) it does have two passenger locos, one that is a semi-fast commuter train and the other that is a more Metro style train, plus a freight loco to come alongside. For me personally, this should be what comes with every major passenger route in TSW2 if possible. Two passenger locos, one express and another commuter and a freight loco, and should this route be done to that standard, plus with all the loco add-ons this route could deliver, you would end up with one of largest, most diverse selection of locos on a route that could offer some of best gameplay experiences of any route in TSW2. As always, if you have any ideas that you like to see on this route or you feel like there's something that can be done differently with this route, then feel free to let me know in the replies down below. That's all from me and I'll see you all next time. Image Sources: https://lookup.london/history-under-liverpool-street/ https://www.architectsjournal.co.uk/news/5th-studio-wins-job-for-major-rethink-of-stratford-station https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shenfield_railway_station https://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/3424510 https://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Attra...ham_Railway_Station-Witham_Essex_England.html https://www.braintreeandwithamtimes...-station-could-be-recommended-for-local-plan/ https://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/4948214 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colchester_Town_railway_station https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ipswich_railway_station https://www.portoffelixstowe.co.uk/press/gallery/ https://electrarail.co.uk/class-360-desiro-emu-430-p.asp https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Rail_Class_315 https://docbrown.info/docspics/ArchiveSteam/lococlass66.htm https://www.class66data.net/66587.html https://gingespotting.smugmug.com/Wagons/F-TOPSCode/FEA-B-Freightliner/i-GZ8g9pc https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Abellio_Greater_Anglia_Intercity_Class_90_Stratford.jpg https://www.flickr.com/photos/68628359@N04/24739369409 https://www.wikiwand.com/en/British_Rail_Class_321 http://uktrainlog.blogspot.com/2015/08/156407-class-156-abellio-greater-anglia.html https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Rail_Class_86
Excellent idea furthermore you are missing Stadler Flirt Class 755 & 745 as DLCs which are the Prevalent Trains here in 2021. To make it realistic add in station announcers however the COVID-19 safety messages will be removed.
