In message , at 17:55:43 on Mon, 3
Jan 2005, Jon Crowcroft remarked:

London University has 3 taught terms of 12 weeks with a reading week, and
5 day terms - Cambridge taught term is 8 weeks of 5.5 days max - in practice
UCL and Imperial students attend more lectures in sciences (at least where I
know) though whether this constites working "harder" I couldn't possibly
comment....

In my time the average Cambridge science/maths/engineering student
worked a 6-6.5 day week, while friends at London used to regularly skip
Friday afternoons and Monday mornings to facilitate weekends away (and
clearly had no intention of ever working Sat/Sun).

p.s. If the current cruiser train time is 45 mins,
and we were discussing a possible time of 35 mins,
and the distance is 55 miles, I am not quite
sure where speeds of 125mph come up

Currently the ECML is a high speed line with the KX-Hitchin part taking
approx 21 minutes (that's in an IC225, I'm not sure the WAGNs could keep
up with that, it's an average of 90mph).

This leaves 25 miles on the Cambridge branch. To meet a 45 minute
schedule that requires an average speed of just over 60mph, which is
what they just about manage to achieve on today's track.

To meet a 35 minute time, they'd need to do the 25 miles in 14 minutes,
which is an average of 107mph !

- 100mph
tilting trains would work on most the route
provided track and points are made up to a higher
quality surely?

Yes, but a *very* big "provided" !!!

--
Roland Perry