Has any developer considered producing Manchester Victoria to Preston as a DLC route? If this "missing link" were made on could drive epic services from Leeds to Blackpool or even Leeds to Carlisle. Okay Manchester Victoria and Preston might end up being "crew exchange points" where you would have to load the next route, but it would create the possibility of genuinely long distance mail and excursion services. Oh, and the Man Vic - Preston route itself was pretty interesting in 1988 with lots of long distance trains, junctions, sidings and industrial buildings. Plus it's only about 38 miles long so well within existing route limits.
What could be done too is set it at around 86 so it would be prior to the Windsor Link and Salford Crescent. and maybe at Bolton you could add the Blackburn via Darwen line up to Blackburn and across to Preston so you would also be able to take the Colne services to Blackburn and go down to Manchester via Darwen. Maybe throw in a Class 108 into the mix for extra variation too.
Just Trains have already reworked the class 08, 47 and 101 from the Northern Trans-Pennine route, which is set in 1982. If DTG wanted one less route to remaster and bring up to modern standards, they could always let Just Trains update it, or at least give them access to some of the assets, like Manchester and Leeds stations? Would this be viable, and possibly save you some work remastering the route yourself? DTG Liam
Manchester to Preston would be fantastic if it was set in the 1980s like JT have done with their routes and DTG with Northern Transpennine.
The one thing that needs doing is to make Manchester Victoria correct, as it still is missing the underpass.
Would be nice to completly rework northern trans pennine and bring it with an extension to preston as dlc.
Manchester to Preston via Bolton and via Atherton/Wigan set in the 1980s would truly finish me off, I lived adjacent to Swinton station back then and have been up and down that line more times than I can remember. Heck, the whole Preston-Carlisle route that just come out nearly killed me in terms of going back and reliving my youth Honestly though I think as far as JT are concerned route wise, I think Preston-Crewe (maybe with the Liverpool spur included) would be next, it's shorter than Carlisle to Glasgow so should be less demanding of PCs & Consoles to run and would be another route that could take full advantage of their excellent 87 and upcoming 86.
