How much traffic is that? Peterborough still has a direct service to Sheffield/ Manchester/ Liverpool - I reckon there's scope for a direct service from East Anglia to West Yorkshire too (maybe giving Stansted/ Cambridge a direct link to "the north", rather than everything having to come from London).
Similarly, Leicester to Sheffield is presumably still a big enough market to justify a direct service, but the southern end of the route may be Thames Valley/ Bletchley/ Bedford (since the "East West" link will have opened by then).
Northampton hasn't had a proper Manchester service for some time, but the Trent Valley service may be extended further north (if HS2 isn't serving Stoke etc).
Hopefully HS2 will allow "classic" lines to provide new links at the southern end, rather than everything having to go into central London.
Someone ran a study a few years ago, analysing Norwich-Windermere as an example of the cross-country network in the country. The quickest route was via Liverpool Street, the Circle Line and Euston, but it cost twice the equivalent of a 'not via London' route. Essentially, that ammounts to Peterborough-Oxenholme. They identified seven routes (I gave the magazine issue away recently, but they passed variously through Leicester, Nottingham, Leeds or Newcastle; then Manchester, Lancaster or Carlisle). Speeding up the MML to 125 might help the Leicester or Nottingham options, but the biggest problems are delays around underdeveloped sections of the route.
Section 1, Norwich/Cambridge-Peterborough
It's slow, only just having its semaphore signalling replaced and dependent upon 158s and Turbostars. Speeding that route up and increasing capacity (perhaps with cascaded Voyagers after IEP comes in) would make it easier for the in-and-out traffic to travel directly to Peterborough.
Section 2, West Riding
Well, more a network than a section. Here's where a proper approach with HS2 might be really helpful. Get a lot of traffic running via Meadowhall and speed up the time it takes to cross Yorkshire, and that should lead to increased traffic. Similarly, speed up the routes in and out of Leeds (the Hambledon curve would have helped here, although it would isolate Wakefield). I would have preferred to see Sheffield Victoria in use for this, the Woodhead might have cut an hour from Nottingham-Manchester times, but that is presumably impossible.
Section 3, East Lancashire
This is why the western branch of HS2 ought to run through central Manchester, it would enable people to change there and travel northwards more easily. Hopefully, Manchester Airport can provide a similar facility, but I reckon that loses 10-30 minutes on a Sheffield-Preston journey compared with a through station at Piccadilly (the same applies to Bristol-Preston with Birmingham).
Section 4, Franchising
Why was the Norwich-Liverpool route not transferred to XC with most of the other Central Citylink routes? It would have made sense, since it is clearly an inter-regional express route, but for reasons which I have never understood, EMT got it. It's about time that was put right.
However, I reckon that HS2 will only serve to attract people towards the southern end. Especially if it results in 'via London' prices falling, and there's always the political concern that it has to be seen to succeed. Mind you, I'll add East Anglia-North West to the 'under-developed rail corridors' thread. I know a lot of people use it, and many more would use it if services were improved. I'll also look at domestic route from Norwich and Stansted Airports, just for comparison.
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There doesn't appear to be a practical place to put any new ECML stations between Peterborough and Retford.
Which is quite a long way.
(Any north Peterborough station would probably either be on the line to Spalding and in case would certainly be positioned on the section prior to the Stamford line diverging, which means there is plenty of trackwork there to support a station with some minor remodelling)
North Peterborough would probably have to be at Werrington, before the Joint Line diverges (previous proposals have included a flyover crossing the fast lines there to allow goods trains direct access from a reinstated down slow). Farther north, the only place that might gain an extra station is East Markham (or 'Tuxford Parkway' if you like) and AIUI it is smaller than Corsham or Wooton Bassatt. And if neither of those can have their station reopened, it's unlikely. Besides, that would rely on having regular stoppers traversing the route, which is unlikely to happen without more stations and would eat into goods paths. I suspect a few more of them is more likely than an all-shacks service.
but fully expect tram-trains been seen as a cheap fix for Pacer replacements into places like Leeds and Manchester - perhaps even using parts of the current mainlines for services in and around Derby, Nottingham, Leicester, Peterborough, Milton Keynes, Northampton etc...