Continuing our retrospective of older TSW2 routes we're looking at the East Coastway line that runs 23 miles (37km) from Brighton (and its Lovers Walk depot) through picturesque Sussex countryside to Eastbourne, with a 7-mile branch line to Seaford just East of Lewes. It's an interesting mixture of mainline and single-track driving, with some deceptive gradients and only occasional red lights when you have to cross the main line. This includes Newhaven where you can see the cross-channel ferry anchored at the quayside and load aggregate at the nearby plant.
The Class 377 is the EMU (Electric Multiple Unit) that serves this route, and there's also freight traffic with the massive BR Class 66 Diesel-Electric locomotive loading and hauling aggregate out of the Newhaven plant. The route has 42 passenger Journeys for the Class 377 and 14 freight for the 66, a Training Module for each, over 200 timetabled services for the 377 and 12 for the 66.
East Coastway was also bolstered by the addition of the BR Class 313 DLC, which added over a hundred services to the route. If you own them, other routes or DLCs supply various layers which mean you can also do a Vintage Railtour service with the Class 37/5 RF, Class 31, Class 47, Class 45, and Class 40 from Lewes to Eastbourne.
East Coastway has also been updated with the Rush Hour passenger system, meaning much busier stations and passengers with more varied and seasonally correct clothing.
Scenery-wise East Coastway looks okay, although there isn't actually much 'coast'. There's the usual TSW2 pop-up despite much of the easternmost landscape (Berwick to Eastbourne) being as flat as the proverbial billiard table. I also noticed that not all of the level crossings actually work, so maybe that's a job for DTG's Preservation Crew. For some reason the game has you switching between the new (Immersion) and old (Classic) control systems too, so the sooner they sort that out the better.
I really like ECW and being lucky enough to have a lot of layers from several other routes, there's plenty to do. It might feel a bit lightweight or samey in its "vanilla" form, but it certainly provides an interesting mix of passenger and freight train driving.