krus_aragon
Established Member
It's a stepping stone toward the intended provision of six north-south journeys with two rakes. My interpretation of this situation is that the Mk4s can't go on Holyhead-Cardiff yet (not cleared / not ready / whatever), and TfW apparently only have one Mk3 First/Buffet carriage available for use.
If they had two Mk3 buffets, they could operate all six planned north-south loco-hauled services with two rates (three journeys per rake). But with only one buffet, that rake can't operate three journeys per day while also serving the two journeys that the Mk3 buffet is currently used on (south in the morning, north in the evening). So they've chosen to under-utilise the Mk3 rakes for the time being and maintain the current (on-board) first class that customers are used to.
The fact that a Mk4 rake is taking the place of the current Mk3 Manchester rake means there's still a net increase of available stock, as the Manchester service was due to go back to being operated by DMUs. And depending on how cunning TfW are in their diagramming, the units that have to operate the mid-day services that should have been loco-hauled can be doubling up and adding capacity to other services inthe morning and evening peak.
