I'd like to recommend the East Midland Railway route between Nottingham and Grantham. Click here for full Route details (Wikipedia) Route time : 30-36 minutes (Seems a great time for DLC) Main Stock : Class 158 (Direct Nottingham to Grantham. Class 156 (Stops at most stations, though very few services stop at Netherfield, Radcliffe and Elton & Orston). Nottingham (Busy City station) - Netherfield (the station thats most rarely stopped at - pass through on 95% of services) - Radcliffe on Trent (town, leading directly to countryside, from.memory approx half stopped here) - Bingham (small town station, passing various residential areas, also passing the A46 dual carriageway and running parallel to the A52 either side of the town) - Aslockton (small village, lots of countryside scenery and farmland, passes a prison, farmland and residential areas with a crossing right next to the station) - Elton & Orston (very small village station, about 33-50% stopped, the rest passed through) - Bottesford (only a stop on a couple of services, but another small village surrounded by countryside) - Grantham (medium sized 'railway' town, with views of residential, Industrial, commercial and countryside) _______ As well as having experienced this line many, many times as a youngster, I feel it's a great line with various signals, crossings, bridges, a small tunnel, various speed changes, some sharp turns, and line changes and a wide selection of services from the two main routes (Nottingham to Skegness and Liverpool to Norwich) . I feel Grantham would be a fantastic station to feature, as it's long been a central hub between Edinburgh and London. Fun fact: The Mallard, broke the speed record for a steam engine (126mph) on the Stoke bank stretch just south of Grantham.
36 minutes seems short. I like scenarios that go 45-60 minutes, personally. Can this be extended? Here is some of my own research: The Nottingham-Lincoln line is a little longer and veers a bit more to the north. However, I believe your intent is to be able to connect Nottingham to the ECML for scenarios, so this line would not help (it goes connect, but a longer route). This one would be a good extension to the Midland Main Line, where JT just released the Erewash Valley segment fairly recently, so the path to Lincoln continues from Nottingham there. I suspect this one will be done. I also notice your suggestion crosses the old Newark on Trent–Melton Mowbray line, which is now a cycling route but includes detailed gradient information. That I'm sure can be matched to where the towns are located, and that 50ish km route might be nice to relive if there is historical significance. That might be good to merge with this line, as well. But my best idea to build on your own has to be the Poacher Line. It goes all the way to Skegness, through Boston (no, not Massachusetts), from Grantham at the end of your segment. This is by itself an 85 minute train ride. Combined with your segment, that makes it 121 minutes, or roughly two hours to drive the entire line. I'd be interested in this as scenarios can be dotted around both sides of the line. Even the Poacher Line by itself is a good size. I suspect your small segment will be covered one day by Just Trains in a worst case scenario, but I'm not convinced if the Poacher Line will fall into their radar as it goes beyond the ECML, but we'll see if it gets picked up.
