It makes me wonder, given the relatively high number available, and with them being in the rare position of being PRM compliant, whether there would be work for Mk4s as Replacement trains / Rescue trains.
A few of the recent discussions on here about bustitution, the situation with Caledonian Sleeper in the middle of the week and several coaches running hundreds of miles up the M6, and presumably the phenomenal costs involved in doing so at a moments notice, combined with large scale closures planned on the ECML, MML and presumably WCML once HS2 integration work really kicks in, made me wonder whether they might just be a market for an operator with a few Mk4 sets and 91s/67s/DVTs strategically placed, and drivers being trained on diversionary routes, or route conducted on main routes by the main driver in the case of a rescue, might just be financially viable. Given the atrocious bad press associated with each case of putting hundreds of people on dozens of elderly buses, might a train that can vacuum up 400 of them in quick order actually be viable ....? Particularly given any solution that doesn’t involve old buses is invariably more popular with the public ?
*Caveat - I appreciate this is complex - I just wonder if there has ever been a time when so much hauled stock was coming off lease simultaneously, with no obvious immediate future and presumably relatively low leasing costs.
