DanNCL
Established Member
I understood that. What I never got clear in my mind is if "not cleared" in this case means that there is a physical limitation, or if it's that they've never done the paperwork to clear them, preferring to use the 373s because they have more storage space and aren't needed to operate the core services.
There were two seperate issues that prevented the 374s from stopping at Ashford. The 374s don't have AWS or TPWS, therefore couldn't leave HS1 to access the platforms at Ashford until the platform lines had been equipped with the French KVB system. Once that was done, 374s did have a brief period stopping at Ashford, during that time an electrical issue was found, which led to the 374s being removed from Ashford stops again for several months until that issue was resolved.Was it possibly a signalling fault? The 374 didn’t have the right on board kit, so something or other had to be added to the platform lines, and that was supposed to have happened for about 2018 ish. But I think there was still an electrical noise issue that took ages to fix, maybe not until early 2020 - but that’s from memory...
The ski services I think was just a case of the paperwork previously not having been done for the 374s. The 373s might still be required for the Marseille route should it ever return, I don't recall the 374s ever being cleared for that route (though I could be mistaken), but otherwise the 374s can now cover all of the routes the 373s covered before the pandemic.