I think Irish rail have sort of rushed this into service. Yes I think it is a good idea and have thought it through but only in the short term,to get it into service ASAP but have not thought about comfort. If they had left it another year and saved up so they would have enough to slightly modify the mk4s to meet high standards. Non stop expresses are usually the premier route with comfort reliability and a sense of safety, which I think Irish rail could do if they really wanted to. Also 2hrs 15? Weren't the 800s recorded doing that? Surely even with the speed restrictions we could bring it down to 2hrs? Although I am not sure as I am not a civil engineer