Correct me if I'm wrong but north Wales will have more seats and more services thus more options.
I did say "little to no improvement in levels of crowding" which is not the same as saying that there won't be a few more seats, just that the passengers won't see much improvement.
Llandudno will go from having a three car 175 with 200 odd seats departing twice an hour to a two car 197 with 120 odd seats, in some hours with only an hourly departure.
North Wales to Manchester services will go from an hourly three car 175 with some four cars in the peak (one of which was LHCS so a great people mover) and a few half-hour extras to an hourly three car 197 with some five cars in the peak, but only east of Chester.
Holyhead to Shrewsbury (for Birmingham) currently consists of a mixture of two and four car 158s. These will become 197s (so fewer seats per unit, even if some trains retain double sets).
Yes, you get an extra train per hour (or possibly two hours) between Llandudno Junction and Chester, thanks to the new Liverpool service, but that is just about enough to mop up the passengers left behind by all of the other trains, it's not enough to get people seated. Look at the example of Virgin Crosscountry as to how running short trains more frequently just induces demand faster than capacity can meet it.
To keep these on the topic of Mk4 sets, for a while 1W93 was LHCS. Used to run full and standing with first class declassified. Now it is booked for a two car DMU. I've seen some frankly unsafe loads as a result.
