ETCS level 3 has long been the “holy grail”, at least for Infrastructure Managers, of ETCS. It is the operational level that appears to deliver the most functionality in a flexible way, whilst also delivering savings and improvements in health and safety for signal technicians, by dispensing with track based train detection. Unfortunately some fundamental obstacles to the implementation of level 3 remain. The International Technical Committee of the IRSE is investigating what is keeping us from implementing level 3. In this article we review its perceived value and point towards a very interesting first implementation in Sweden, in an unexpected type of application: Low Cost Train Protection known as ERTMS Regional.