Thanks re number of characters.

as for the select - I have two select statements,

I tried adding 

select td = Select Row_Number() Over(Order By snapshot_Date) %...

turns out the problem was the date field on each row.. wasnt being recognised as datetime therefore would not import

changed process to import into a temp table with...

doh... I had posted the wrong .fmt file.... now corrected

I tried changing to tab to see if it made any difference..... but it didnt