Afroal05

I was absolutely delighted to receive my first pack (an Aberdeen pack) on Wednesday, probably one of the largest boxes I have ever had models in! No problems with DHL either. Out of the stunning box and the coaches are visually stunning. I really like the ability to chose the destinations as well. The printed detail is superb, right down to the fine writing on the solebar. The coloured interiors are great, a real improvement on other manufacturers single coloured plastic and really helped to take me back to sitting in the bar car with its distinctive jagged bar down one side. My initial set of 6 ran beautifully behind my AS 92 for 30ish minutes without incident. The wand is easy to use and the ability to turn on and off all of those lights is pretty cool. The magnetic couplings look great and the close coupling they provide is superb, surely close coupling like this has to become a new 'standard' for the industry to aspire to, so much easier to couple/uncouple than tension locks too. My rake negotiated both R2 and R3 with no noticeable issues. One of the dampers fell off but it wasn't broken so this has been easily and carefully reattached, if it drops out again I'll reaffix it with a drop of glue. The niggles - the aforementioned floating window frames and illuminated CDLs. A shame that there isnt any plastic behind the CDL 'glass' to stop the light bleed and unfortunate that the CDL lines up with an LED. I didn't know if this was a QC issue at first so thanks to Jack for raising it and Fran's response. (But see the superb printed solebar detail!) I have several coaches with light bleed from the tail lights, these lights are extremely unlikely to be on as the coaches in question are all in the middle of the rake so it's not likely to be a problem for me. A slight gripe that I haven't see mentioned is the amount of LEDs along the coaches, this creates patches of light and patches of dark, it's like there are half the LEDs required to fully illuminate the corridor. The real things are actually lit with lights in the windows, I appreciate this isn't possible (and I wouldn't expect it to be) but I think it is a shame that there are these light and dark contrasts when the real thing are incredibly bright all the way along. This is most noticeable in the seating car and the club car. Pictures below along with one from the real thing. If these were just any coaches I probably wouldn't pay too much attention, but these are the sleepers, their stomping ground is in the dark so it feels that bit more noticeable. Club car (dark spot particularly in the window at the far right hand end, the other third window from left end): Standard sleeper car: Seated car: The brightness of the real thing: Yesterday (Thursday) I received one of the Inverness portions. Largely the same, although I have a coach that is completely electrically dead so I'll drop AS support an email. After giving the 4 Inverness coaches a quick spin to check their running (all good) I thought I would try all 10 cars. Simply moving the rake with my hand the couplings were pleasingly strong and the rake showed no signs of separating. Not a problem for the AS 92 which lifted the rake away without any fuss (later testing with an older tooling Bachmann 37 proved the rake is weighty enough to cause the 37 to slip quite a bit before getting going). Unfortunately, when traversing the first R3 corner the coaches derail, every time, without fail. Specifically the rear end of coach 1 and the leading end of coach 2, I removed a coach from the rake to check it wasn't a specific vehicle and the same happened again. All I can conclude is that the weight of 10 coaches is sufficient that the path of least resistance is off sideways. 6 and 4 run perfectly fine on their own, but 10, nope. Has anyone else experienced this? I don't wish to be overly negative, as I said at the start the sleepers are visually stunning, the couplings are brilliant and there has clearly been a phenomenal effort and attention to detail gone into them. I have/had aspirations of running a full 16 coach rake (although not likely to happen on my current layout) but feel I've got a bit of a decision about whether to try and get the remaining two packs I don't have.

I caved, after reading this thread since I received my first (and originally only 92) and everyone's euphoria at their own models I started debating getting 92020. I've ordered the mk5s and made a bit of an oversight not knowing that 92038 never actually hauled the mk5s in the condition modelled. I spent two days watching the remaining stock count down and the other half telling me that I should get it (which felt like reverse psychology) only to find that late last night there was one left, I panicked, I bought it. Thanks to AS for making such a stellar model, so jaw dropping that despite absolutely not needing another, I've bought one anyway.

Holy moly! What a sublime model. My first AS loco and I am simply stunned. From the moment you lift it out of the box and feel the weight, the crispness of the finish, the details... Once it was set up in the controller I must have spent five minutes just raising and lower the pantographs at one end and then the other (and then both up/down using the 'test' function). The cab details, the desk lighting, the headlighting - don't stare point blank at the toplight, it's very bright (obviously) 🤪 When I finally stopped mucking around with pans it was time to press F1 and hear the 'Accurathrash'. Again, speechless. I thought it sounds excellent and seamlessly glided round my layout. There was a slight altercation with the Hornby mk3 (with big D ring coupling) and then Dapol KTA/KQA that I tested it with, I fully believe this is down to my trackwork where I have a set of reverse curves that I think might be too tight (R3 LH, two inches of straight and R3 RH), the couplings seem to lock and pull the leading bogie of the coach/wagon off the track. The track might also have a slight twist so I'm not convinced it's the loco at all - for reference the other stock I've had issues with on this section have been a new Hornby 91 (the motor bogie derails) and Hornby Pullmans (that seems to lock and pull themselves off). The solution will be to relay the section with a much looser curve. I was impressed by the movement possible in the bogies both laterally and vertically which should dampen some bumps on imperfect trackwork. Tiny frustration aside, the loco is staggeringly beautiful and wonderfully engineered. I never thought a 92 would be the model I love the most but I cannot wait to get home and simply send it round and round light engine again. Roll on the mk5s and the 37s and hats off to Accurascale, wowza!

I think it's a combination of coincidence and the diagrams. If we look at the LTP diagrams for (say) Wednesday of the week just gone: 12x 802/9 diagrams of which 5x started at locations outside of the WoE, of these only 2x ended up finishing the day in the WoE. Thus there are then 7x starting in the WoE with only 2 leaving each day. You can imagine from this that cycling the units around can be a bit of a challenge. Then you take into account which diagrams have Pullman services on them, one of these is a Laira - Laira diagram, one is a Laira - Bristol Parkway diagram (the other two WoE Pullmans are on 10 car diagrams). So that now leaves 5x usable diagrams in the WoE, but only 3x starting at Laira. Then there's the small matter that (due to fleet availability) 9 cars are covering both 800 and 802 diagrams all over the shop. If we take a look back at what '106 has done the last week: Fri 25/11: SGI-SGI (with 8hr layover at LNP) covering 800/9 diagram, North Cots to finish the day. Sat 26/11: Unused at SGI (ASLEF Strike day) Sun 27/11: Unused at SGI Mon 28/11: SGI-MAL covering 800/9 diagram, Taunton, Bristol, several South Wales. Tue 29/11: MAL-SGI covering 800/9 diagram, South Wales work with a Weston to finish. Wed 30/11: SGI-SGI covering 800/9 diagram, Bristols. Thu 01/12: SGI-SGI covering 800/9 diagram, Bristols. Fri 2/12: SGI-LNP, swapped onto LNP early doors as 2x GUs were isolated and the diagram would have taken it to Penzance and back. Sat 3/12: LNP-LNP a trip to Penzance and back! But then swapped back onto North Pole as 2x GUs are still isolated. If we factor in 800/9 diagrams on a daily basis there are then potentially another 17 diagrams that '106 could cover! So I suspect it's just coincidence that it hasn't been west in a while - although whilst it has 2x GUs isolated I don't think anyone will be sending it that way unless it's the last unit standing. I know my answer is overkill but I hope it perhaps is an insightful view to others. Al

Unfortunately not the case. Hitachi manage the IET allocations and pass these on to GWR Control overnight, GWR can change these by request but this is usually only to help deliver an exam requirement (for which they are fairly sympathetically allocated anyway). From personal experience I wouldn't describe any of the Hitachi Controllers as neds! '106 has done a lot of work in the West of England since the vinyls have been applied (it's actually worked all over the place). I can assure you, with decent authority, that it is currently listed as 'last resort' on Pullmans and those at Hitachi who plan the allocations have been briefed the same. All other GWR stock, I agree, can have an element of fudgery to them (although that is still quite difficult with current availability levels). HSTs used to have a dedicated planner in the Control centre who was very enthusiastic and did manage the allocations accordingly!

Funny you should mention that. It is to be used 'as a last resort' apparently... Feels like a bit of a knee jerk/over sensitive reaction really. Are people actually going to refuse to partake in Pullman dining because of an advertising livery?!

For those who haven't seen it, 802106's promotional wrap (taken the same day St. Simon posted it here, 19th Nov). Vinyls applied to the first class driving vehicle, base colour is a dark blue. A nice vibrant splash of colour to see out and about. An oddity about the vinyl appear to be that the last number (802106) appears to be in a different font and colour, like it was an afterthought! It'll be interesting to see the level of mess (if any) the vinyls leave behind when they are stripped.

Further to what @St. Simon said, I believe the current phraseology of 'Would XX make the next IC call' is because this way it ensures both persons involved in the call are by the handset and ready to take/make it. I seem to remember when the stock was fairly new you could hear people trying to make these calls (which contrary to St. Simon I remember it being quite a loud beep heard throughout the saloon!) without such an announcement and it could call/beep for some time before it was answered. Last time I was able to cab ride an IET I found this beeping comes out in the cab too when an IC call is made, the beeping does sound rather like some kind of an error warning and I think the current phraseology not only serves to warn the driver this irritation is about to happen but also reduces the amount of time the beeping goes on for.

How long? No indication of this yet but GWR were told that once things get up and running the plan will be to have units cycling to/from Eastleigh at a beat rate of one a week. I don't know how many units you'd need down at Eastleigh to churn one back out every week. We shall see about that! Both 800026 & 802003 have now been down there some quite considerable time. If my data sources are correct (and I can't find an easy way to verify them right now) 800026 went down to Eastleigh 28th July and 802003 went down there 29th June. There was some discussion earlier as to mileages accumulated and that kind of thing. Again if the data is correct 800023 has accumulated 591429 miles, 802003 has accumulated 640947 miles. Initially GWR were expecting one of them back at the end of October, there is now no estimate that I have heard (although someone in here said December a few pages ago). Taking today as a fairly average example of most of this year's diagrams. There are 76 service diagrams accruing miles with a contractual requirement to provide 80 units. (From December that becomes 80 service diagrams with 0 spares, I think that is going to prove quite a challenge based on currently fleet availability - but that isn't really related to cracking issues). Please excuse the somewhat rough and ready way of presenting the data! NP diagrams are designed for 800s (NP001-017 for 9 cars, NP101-132 for 5 cars) IW diagrams are designed for 802s (IW910-921 for 9 cars, IW951-970 for 5 cars) EDIT: There are usually 74 diagrams during the SX, NP124/127 are short diagrams as they are positioning sets ahead of the TVSC strikes tomorrow. In theory you'd cycle your unit from diagram 1-17 (for an 800/9) however it really doesn't work out like this at all because of the way Hitachi manage the fleet and create their fleet plans and because of failures, set swaps, late running etc on the day. My opinion is that in HST days sets would follow the plan a lot more closely than IETs do, it is not very often at all you find an IET working the sequential diagram when it comes back in to service the following day! (The ones usually guaranteed to are units that outstable, but even then they often get swapped out on layover). This means some units have clocked up a lot more miles than others - this is also the case where some have been stopped long term. With HSTs you used to know how many miles it had until a specific exam, with the Hitachi exam plan it seems to be calculated more on days (a 30, 60, 90, 120 day exam) and as there is no visibility of the inner workings of the Hitachi exam plan amongst GWR staff I can't ascertain if mileage is really a big factor in it. I might have mentioned it before (apologies if I have) but it baffles me that IETs have so much tech - the mileages I quoted earlier are actually calculated to 4 decimal places - and you can at any given time see almost everything and anything the IET is 'thinking' or doing, there is data for everything. For example, there is a estimated loadings feature which tries to count people coming on and off through the doorways - this can be fooled if you entered one vehicle and left through another, as is evidenced by a unit I once observed on depot that claimed it had 1008 people in one vehicle! On the other than hand (the bit that actually bothers me about this) is that the unit cannot actually accurately tell you how much fuel is in it. The fuel ranges are simply specified as >95%, 95-75%, 75-50%, 50-20%, 20-5%, 5%> - what?! It can be observed (if you have the access, only Hitachi do) when the fuel readings cross from one level to another but there is no live reading to say 34% or 415 miles range (for example). Our cars have given predictions (even if sometime they're a little ropey) for a while now and airliners have been able to calculate fuel and fuel burn in real-time for years and years. As a result GWR are using largely made up fuel ranges with even more made up calculations for what you do when a GU if shut down or locked out of use which can lead to unnecessary set swaps, service delays or simply controllers panicking unduly! Okay, I'll get off my soap box (sorry). To very quickly continue the off topic toilet talk with a general IET overview. IETs are fitted with two universal access toilets, one in each driving car, this is because thats how the bodyshells are made. On a 5 car unit this means you have a UAT that isn't actually accessible to a wheelchair bound person as there's nowhere for them to go other than the vestibule and the toilet - the wheelchair space being in the first class vehicle. On a 9 car the UAT is at each end matches up with both standard and first class wheelchair areas. UATs have an open and a close button but a handle on the inside wall to lock/unlock - the handle controlling an electric lock rather than being a mechanical handle lock. There is also an announcement when the doors slides shut 'Now lock the door!' and 'The door is locked!'. A small light next to the handle illuminates red when locked. I do like the handle contraption as button locks mean there are a lot of buttons on the go (and to get wrong). Standard class toilets on GWR IETs, as many will have encountered, are tiny airline type box affairs with twist locks on the door (and poor sink designs that mean the floor is always pooled with water). **** Back to cracking issues and sets do still fail from time to time with cracks when undergoing their daily inspection, these are moved to North Pole for temporary welding. At the moment it's a rare occurrence, I'm assuming that is because by this point the whole fleet has been temporarily welded. Al

92010 at the head of 1S25 on the evening of 23rd August. Whilst not the clearest shot of the loco the sky/sunset was stunning with some interesting colours on the OLE.

73969 at Aberdeen on 24th August having brought in 1A25 from Edinburgh. A drab, grey morning in the granite city.

43301 on the rear of an XC service during an extended stop at Cheltenham (09/09/22). The set sat here for some time as there was a trespasser between Cheltenham and Bristol Parkway. I like the raised angle for this photo but would have preferred it if there wasn't that pillar in the way! 43290 looking very tatty (09/09/22) at Crewe on a test train underneath broody skies. A monsoon was about 15 minutes away! 43299 on the other end of the above test train.

Some photos from the Blue Pullman tour from Crewe to Aviemore on 23rd July. 43049 during the leg stretch at Perth: 43046 trailing: The set sat for the duration of the time in Aviemore and all of the Scotrail services were replatformed around it. Despite having paid quite a lot for the trip on the Pullman, the friend I went with was desperate to get a service train back as far as Pitlochry. Apparently he 'needed' the miles from one of the powercars! Journeys end, back in Crewe: Rigged to the front of 43046 was a GoPro and charging pack. There was filming throughout the tour, including a crew onboard, as there is a documentary coming out next year. I think the documentary looks at the wider LSL operation, not just the Blue Pullman.

A jolly out on the chiltern on 22nd July. Both '011 and '008 pictured at Birmingham.

A pair or railtour related shots. 57309 stabled at Crewe as LSL's Blue Pullman 'Highland Clansman Pullman' to Aviemore waits to depart on 23rd July '22. On 3rd September, Pathfinder ran a part steam hauled tour from Bristol - Carlisle via Lune Gorge and back via the S&C with Tangmere hauling from Carnforth - Carlisle - Preston. Either side of this the tour was in the hands of 57s. 57313 did the Bristol - Carnforth leg before attaching to the back and giving assistance up the banks. Recently outshopped 57010 & 57012 brought the train back from Preston. Unfortunately the phone had died by this point so no pictures of the /0s. '313 on the rear at Carlisle ahead of the return leg.

The night of 12th November 2021 and 57604 was in charge of the GWR down sleeper. Due to 'overrunning engineering works' - a wagon with a tremendous wheel flat that wasn't allowed to be moved out of the possession without inspection which meant the possession wasn't handed back on time - I woke to find I was still in Plymouth and nearly 3 hours late! Ready for the off: 0833 at Plymouth, should have been in Penzance.

Inspiring stuff James! I've spent the last few nights catching up on your mammoth year of weathering and it is just exquisite. Makes me keen to get back to the workbench. An artist and a craftsman! Al

Some pictures from last weekend's Pathfinder Easter Highlander tour. 37422 & 37425 worked the following: 1Z12 1541 Skipton - Paisley Gilmour Street on Friday, 1Z14 0733 Dumbarton Central - Oban and 1Z15 1845 Oban to Dalmuir on Saturday, 1Z16 0934 Dumbarton Central to Aberdeen and 1Z17 1720 Aberdeen to Dumbarton Central on Sunday and finally, 1Z18 0942 Dumbarton Central to Eastleigh, as far as York, yesterday. The pair standing at Carlisle on Friday during a leg stretch break: On Saturday morning at Oban: A double run round at Oban was required to put '422 back on the front of the train to lead back to Dalmuir as '425 is not fitted with RETB equipment. 37219 was dumped in the siding at Crianlarich, I'm led to believe it's slipped its tyres and will require roading away for new wheelsets. Finally, the locos bring the stock back into Aberdeen after the break there. Apparently I didn't take any photos yesterday!

Me too with the Fort William pack! My fault for continually putting off purchasing them until the next month.

In terms of cracks, nothing has really changed. Availability is hanging around 70 units a day and this has taken a dip in the last couple of months although cracks are not the reason. Covid/sickness within engineering teams has been the biggest problem and it is noticeably hitting the fleet with a decent number of GUs out and other defects piling up, a common defect at the moment seems to be holes developing in wheelsets. This is compounded a little bit by GWR driver sickness/covid which does mean that not all of the exam requirements are delivered in the required timeframes and this throws the Hitachi exam plan out a bit. When things are so delicately planned on what few maintenance man hours there are this does mean that if you miss the desired window (or day) to deliver the unit then its exam might have to be kicked back several days or cause a bunching of exams/defect repair and extra pressure on depots. I won't comment on opinions about the way the whole maintenance and rolling stock management situation works compared to when HSTs (and other units still withing the franchise) are maintained in house but that could easily fill another topic in itself and it is certainly more complicated this way (at face value anyway). Further crack analysis and testing is being conducted at the moment with a unit covering the network with measuring equipment which I believe is to try and understand the things and forces that might have caused the issue in the first place. This diagram has been around before with the unit trying to go everywhere IETs go and get measurements but it has always fallen victim to driver shortages a little bit. 802007 went to Penzance today and the diagram is booked to go to Swansea tomorrow. In terms of fleet interoperability and other titbits then things have largely been positive. On Friday 10th December an Ops document was sent round confirming that Class 800 and 802 traction could be coupled together in passenger service. Previously this had only been permitted for rescue and recovery purposes and wasn't allowed even on empty trips to depot. On Saturday 11th a situation presented itself where I was able to attach an 800/802 and we ran the first legal pair in traffic. Unfortunately I have to throw that caveat in as we had done it by accident before and only realised after the event. This is a huge development for controllers and makes it much easier to keep trains moving. The only restrictions when 800/802 are coupled together are that rheostatic braking isn't available and when the 800 is leading the formation the bodyside cameras are not available for the 802 unit. The first occurrence of a 9 car and a 5 car took place just after Christmas as well. This is still only permissible for recovery purposes. A 9 car 802 arrived at Cheltenham Spa which had been struggling with GUs shutting down and they all packed in on arrival at Cheltenham. The driver was able to restart one and limp into Alstone sidings but when there it shut down again and after a quick investigation it was concluded the unit was out of fuel! (Root cause was a failure of the fuel pumps at North Pole the day before and it wasn't communicated that the 802 hadn't been fuelled). The recovery was made by sending a fitter to Cheltenham who was able to trip out the fuel sensor in one of the tanks so that it wasn't reading (or correctly reading) the fuel quantity. IETs are set so that the GU shuts down when the fuel tank reaches 5% to prevent it running out completely and seizing up. The unit then crawled to Gloucester where it was attached to a healthy 800/5 (meaning it was an 802/9 & 800/5 combination) and dragged back to Reading where it split and both units were able to move to North Pole on electric. The 14 car drag did require two drivers as the TMS in the leading unit cannot observe more than 12 vehicles so a driver, or competent person, has to be in the rear unit to make sure that if it bursts into flames someone can react accordingly. Finally when a unit is prepped for service the prep certificate used to be valid for 35.5 hours after which the unit was required to visit a depot for another prep. This time window has now been extended to 48hrs which offers a much greater versatility when swaps are required during the day to deliver other exam requirements or during disruption. Unfortunately this is probably the last update of this detail that I will be able to give as I will be leaving my role that allows me this level of information and operational involvement and I will instead begin training to be a driver in a couple of weeks time. I will try and provide useful or informative updates if I can in the future. Al

Yep, double checked that, all jumpers set for 2 rail.

As far as I understand the ECoS automatically detects and registers the Detector. There seems to be very little in the settings to tell it where to look for a block, it either detects current or it doesn't. In this test/setup screen it's showing detection in sections 1 & 3. There is absolutely nothing on the track in those sections. Yes, 100% sure. I built the layout with this in mind and each block has IRJs on both rails at both ends.

Apologies All for the near 12 months without an update. Unfortunately this isn't going to be any different so if you're looking for pictures and modelling updates this isn't going to be it. The last year has (and continues to be) a little chaotic. It wasn't that long after my last update that fatigue cracks were found on the IET fleet and my work world was turned absolutely upside down as we tried to run a train service with an ever dwindling fleet of trains. At first it was so farcical it was almost amusing (almost, but not) as at the low point we were left with one IET in service. It is an absurd situation as a controller when you can literally watch everything your entire working fleet is doing; speed, pantograph status, estimated passenger loadings etc, you could just sit and watch the incredibly detailed Hitachi system on a single train and that was it. From there things got much harder as the fleet came back with concessions and subsuquently with temporary welding to keep things going until a proper long term repair solution can be carried out - I believe we are still looking for what that solution is, such is the complexity of the problem! I was frequently writing and rewriting new train plans with hours notice as we were suddenly promised 6 units, then 18, 24 and so on. As they were coming back I was often asked to write a plan for us to implement the following day whilst train planning could work up a proper plan with several days notice. As the problem of reduced availability of units began to subside in came driver shortages. Now well known by most who either use the train or follow the industry. For the best part of two years no one was training new drivers due to the requirements to have two in the cab and the risk of spreading covid. But of course the conveyor belt doesn't stop when it comes to drivers retiring or moving away and we have fallen into a position where we can't really fulfill the timetable we are supposed to be providing. There is some industry politics at play but for various reasons the current method of working whereby we frantically try and cover all of the uncovered trains in the 24hrs before the day and stitch up the service together like an ill fitting patchwork is preferred to a formal timetable reduction. Allegedly we cancel less services this way but you could have fooled me! It was not uncommon for me to be entering close to 300 trains (both passenger and empty stock) into the Control wide spreadsheet each evening which had no crew assigned to them, this was as recently as last month. A lot of those would somehow get covered, but not without great stress and anxiety to all involved. I know controllers are meant to be good at spinning plates but this has felt like spinning the whole croquery cupboad. Unfortunately this is still the status quo although it has recently been approved to reduce the timetable ever so slightly. So as you may be able to glean, there hasn't really been any time to do any modelling. I honestly feel like I have been burning the candle at both ends for nigh on 12 months now and it does take its toll! At home (in the small amount of time I have been here) my layout was broken up and the modelling desk moved upstairs into the railway room. All that means is that the desk is still under a pile of stuff and not fit for working on. I have started a new layout - but haven't created a thread as I don't think it is that interesting and probably won't be that good either - and that has taken up what little time I have had in the last few months. I have got it to a place where I can run a train round two loops now and I'm enjoying watching trains pootle round. No IETs though, they can stay in their boxes... To compound everything I managed to pick up covid in work just after Christmas (it can only have been work as I literally haven't been anywhere else) so I now have a week off. Fortunately I am triple jabbed and I have had little more than a light cough and a 5 day headache so I have spent 5 days isolating in the railway room! I will hopefully get back to some more workbench modelling in the near future. Maybe. Here's an IET racing through Dawlish on 14th November. Bloody things.

Hello All, Purhcased an ECoS Detector (50094) and set to wiring it up last night. It all seemed fairly straight forward, however, in the two sections/blocks I have tried to set up so far are both showing as occupied despite the fact they are not. The fault finding I have done so far is as follows: Tested a loco (with Railcom) through the little section (port 1) that should identify a Railcom equipped loco - nothing detected. Checked the wiring is as per the manual - I believe it is. Each block is split with an insulated rail joiner, as it happens this is across both rails and not along one side as described in the manual. However there seem to be plenty of people out there who have done the same with no issues. I did swap the main layout wiring over as the ESU manual had red/black wires and 0/B connections the other way around. I can't see how this might make a difference and it didn't. I removed the detection wire into the Detector to ensure that with no signal the section would now show clear - it didn't. The section still shows occupied. I then wired up a second block on the other side of the layout and the fault is identical there. I unplugged the track power to the Detector and the section still shows occupied. I unplugged the ECoS Link cable between the Detector and ECoS - the section remains occupied. I suspect this is where the problem lies somehow, in the way it has integrated with the ECoS? But I can't fathom how as it is supposed to integrate itself. I have looked on the ECoS forum for answers but found a lot of unanswered forum posts that may have had similar issues. As such I'm now putting it out to the RMweb hivemind, please help! Pictures can be provided as well as potential criticism heading my way if I had done something that is next level cretin. Al

Well as of this moment there are only three units stopped listed as cracked: 800026, 800307, 802012. As a percentage that's 3.22%. I can only understand this to mean 800013 has had some kind of repair made on it - it was still stopped last week having been stopped since April but I can see it is out in traffic today. By comparison there are nearly as many (two) units long term stopped for impact damage repair (completely unrelated). I haven't heard any recent ETAs for a fix but that certainly doesn't mean there isn't one. The original dates being kicked around were 18-24 months from first unit repaired. Yes, that is my understanding as well John. Interesting to see that '013 is back in traffic though as I was only told last week the cuts they had made were extensive and a return to traffic was unlikely soon. Al