First of all, I worked for LTS Rail (which became C2C) for 7 years so the network has a special place in my heart. Aside from that it is an end-to-end passenger network, with a variety of services for me it's the variety of scenery that makes it such a special line. You have the best/closest view on the railway network of the square-mile towers of the City of London on approach to Fenchurch Street (and a glimpse of Tower Bridge & the Tower of London) with views of Docklands between Limehouse and Bow curve, the route takes you through a mixture of Georgian streets interspersed with 60's apartment blocks, then Victorian East London, then 1930s suburban London. The older Tilbury route is a mix of marshland, light industry, heavy industry with a spur to the Thames Gateway freightliner depot. The newer route goes though London's largest council estate, tree-lined parks and managed wild areas, climbing uphill (alongside the District Line) through Havering, past the only surviving windmill in Greater London to Upminster where London ends and the countryside starts. Then we have the brutalist Laindon estate, the new town of Basildon after which the two lines come back together at Pitsea we have rolling hills, Hadleigh Castle then the famous cockle sheds at Leigh-on-Sea, the short seawall section along the tidal Thames Estuary then the urban spread of Southend and luxurious housing around Thorpe Bay. Between the two main lines there's the surprisingly rural branch between Upminster and Grays. You've also got the huge Lakeside shopping centre along that branch too. I honestly don't think there's another line that represents so many quintessentially British landscapes. The only thing missing is mountains. Moving away from the scenery, there are three ways of getting from one end of the line to the other, intensive and varied peak services, two large traction depots (3 if you include TfL's Upminster Depot), what's left of Ripple Lane yard, running alongside HS1, the aforementioned Freightliner terminal, where, as mentioned above, you can take a freight train from next to the Sea to Milton Keynes using the route hopping function and the possibility of letting Rivet's "D stock" stretch it's legs (well, wheels) on the 13 mile surface section of the District Line between Bromley-By-Bow and Upminster Depot. Finally there's the rolling stock. Currently it has the Class 357 Electrostar and a small fleet of Class 720 Aventras. If it's not set in the modern era then we have the possibility of seeing some classic slam-door and Mk3 EMU stock; Classes 302,305,308,310,312 and 317 have all featured there in the last 35 years. There has never been a Slam-door AC (and therefore OHL) EMU in TSC let alone TSW. It could also feature the first Mk3 derived EMU (Class 317) in TSW. Guard mode in a slam-door would be very involved, ringing the bell in the hope that nobody is about to try to board a departing train. Up front and you'd be running on yellows west of Barking in the peaks. Sorry if that turned into a essay but I'm a passionate advocate for a line that's never featured in a railway simulation before.
I still think the GWR license will play into it (or possibly the mid year DTG route). If I'm thinking from a sales perspective, I'd have to say ECML: Kings Cross to Peterborough would be one that says "headline". Add in the Moorgate branch too. You've got similar to last years WCMLS a wide variety of service patterns from fast to stoppers. Then with the route hopping you've got the route basically from Kings Cross to Doncaster. Add in a certain Class 91 as the deluxe loco and that makes it day 1 for a lot of people.
While I've advocated for the LTS/C2C, having watched this LNER video earlier today the 124 mile Newcastle to Edinburgh section of the ECML would make a superb and challenging DLC. Lots of gradients and speed restricted sections along with 125 mph running in the LNER, TPE and/or Lumo IETs. 385s doing the stoppers between Berwick and Edinburgh, Northern 158s doing the Newcastle to Morpeth stoppers and maybe a brand new Class 220/221 Cross Country Voyager would be a useful addition for other routes too. It would be an ideal opportunity to introduce an additional DLC of the Class 91 Mk4 set. I appreciate they don't go north of York these days but I really don't think anyone would protest if there were a few services like The Flying Scotsman in the Timetable and it would layer very nicely on to the Doncaster to Peterborough section. Anyway, here's the cab ride video from the good people at LNER.
Nice read! ironically you just perfectly outlined the reasons why this network was never made for TS Classic and why no one will do it for TSW. It´s too much work with the diverse scenery, the different branches and the tube/DLR. Don´t get me wrong, it would be awesome and I would buy it first day regardless if someone made it for TSC or TSW. But even if someone made the full thing, where would the logical ending point for the district line be? This is one of the many complicated questions. Bromley by Bow? Mile End? Whitechapel? Aldgate?
Frustratingly someone has made it for TSC but won't release it until there's proper rolling stock made for it. It's been finished for a while now. In fact he made it with Kuju assets then totally rebuilt it to more modern standards, it's been collecting dust for at least a couple of years now. As for TSW I think it would be an ambitious product, but I would hope the good people at DTG are ambitious because if they're not, lots of popular, busy sections of the UK's network will never appear in TSW. Hopefully improvements and optimisations are coming in TSW6 that make busier, longer routes more viable. Sections from East Ham Depot to Rainham have already been made for TSW and appear in the Suffergette Line and South Eastern Express. The busiest and largest station on the line is Barking and that's already made for TSW. I think it's perfectly possible, maybe it needs to be a third party developer with a more relaxed release schedule or a collaborative release. As for the District Line, it's not the point of the release, if the surface section were made driveable it would only be Bromley-by-Bow eastward. Personally, I'd be fine if it was AI only if it was a choice between LTS happening or not. Likewise the DLR between Limehouse and Tower Gateway, AI only.
That is a shame..It would be good to see some more modern stock in TSC just for this, and I don't think all developers have given up on the old girl yet as from recent personal experience TSC still has a lot to offer to the Trainsim enthusiast that TSW just cant scratch!
