In article ,
Meldrew of Meldreth writes:
In article , Jon Crowcroft
writes

What surprises me is that there isn't more reverse commuute

Trains to Cambridge in the morning have appalling timekeeping. Even
people commuting from as close as Royston/Meldreth etc are only doing it
as a distress purchase.

I'm guessing that only the rather baroque residence
requirement of the University has stopped some of that
community taking that view

You entirely misunderstand the "boarding school" nature of education at
Cambridge, which takes places 7 days a week. It's simply not like most
other Universities. It suits people very well, and if it's not to your
taste then no-one is forcing you to go there.

This is rather an over-statement of the specialness of Cambridge
(especially given there's Oxford, Durham, and even UKC
and a couple of other places that are based on College/Residence model
formally); but having studied for taught
degrees and research degrees in London and
Cambridge, let mesaytell you that since the
move to most teaching and much supervision
being department or school centric in Cambridge, the collegiate
(or boarding school) model you describe is much less pronounced.
What is more, MOST universities traditionally had a model that students
were "away from home" for the first time living in dorms, staying in
their university town all term, and going home in the vac. Indeed,
given the economic pressures, travel is not high on the typical
student (or academic)'s agenda. For real cabin fever though, there are
ofcourse students who are obliged to live at home due to falling in
between various "wealth bins" that the governemnt constructs.

Anyhow this is not directly connected with transport (although actually
cost of living and pressures on where to live in relation to work
are clearly major factors in planning, so I dont think its off topic for
this group).

Going the other way, a friend of mine who works at UCL
(where I used to) did indeed move to Cambridge for
life style reasons, and the 70min estimate for
commute time is about right (note -
depending on your work, this is made up of
45 mins of useable reading/working time...so in fact
its very tractable - in his case, he even gets london
weighting on his salary which almost exactly covers
the train ticket costs )

Actually, the 70 minutes is the time *on the train* in the rush hour
(not door to door). That's 58 minutes for the journey and five minutes
either end for getting on and off.

Um, my friend is an _academic_: You assume he commutes in the peak time,
but thats not a requirement, as he can go after (or before.
But you're right I guess for some jobs,
e.g. some city banker type who wants to live in a nice
quiet town/village, unless they go really early, and that would
kind of negate the point of a quiet half-life.
For the reverse commute, there _are_ fast trains and smaller crowds.

45 mins is the much faster journey time during the day on a non-stop
Cambridge Cruiser, which don't run in the peaks.

Yes, true - and thats reasonable given they have to stop so many times
so a faster train couldnt easily overtake. I wonder if they've looked
at this increase in demand and figured out if there's money in it
to improve that service yet?

And if you are lucky enough to get a seat you can do some work, but the
trains lack useful tables and it's a real struggle.

Yes, that is a drag ... the trick WAGN play with 8 and 4
carriage trains is neat, but it doesnt quite produce enough
space for the commute load...I agree -

If GNER trains didnt get in the way at the Hitchin junction,
theCambridge-London service for King's Cross could easily be
a tad faster - _ believe there was discussion 3-4 years ago
about speeding the route up further to 35 mins but:

The cruisers manage to get through Hitchin without stopping. It's about
57 miles by train, and 35 mins is a bit optimistic (average of 98mph
using trains that I think have a max speed of 100mph). The line speed
from Hitchin to Cambridge is the limiting factor, a major upgrade about
5 years ago raised it to the 70-80 mph region, I think (and knocked 2
mins of the timings). Upgrading again to 100 mph is unrealistic.

I thouht the points were a big limiting factor between
Hitchin and Cambridge and at Hitchin too...but I am not
a Jarvis employee of course:-)

If you look at GNER timings (and they run at well over 100mph) then
Hitchin would seem to be about 21 mins from KX (Stevenage is timetabled
at 19 mins as a stop; or dividing the KX-HIT-PBO distance equally into
45 mins you get 20 mins, but the southern end is always slower) leaving
only 14 mins for the remaining 25 miles! The cruisers do well to average
about 70 north of Hitchin (assuming they can also get to Hitchin in 21
mins, which is averaging just over 90).

Well I certainly remember reading about plans; I am fairly sure that
the problems are slwing for the various points and level crossings
like round Foxton. If there was a road bridge there (or road tunnel, although
it doesnt look easy to engineer that) that would obviate the
rather long slow down and speed up a train has to do. I am guessing
that the 70mph is simply coz there's not enough run between these
places to make it worth getting up to 90 or 100 and then back down again
but you may well be right...

but imagine if it was 35 mins - you could be looking at
Cambridge-Paris by train in 2 years time in under 3 hours...
which would probably be very close to the
cambridge-stansted-charles de gaul-paris haul given checkin/security
etc, and an awful lot greener....and when fuel prices go up and hit
economy airlines, an awful lot cheaper (though thats rather
further off:-(

"now, the thing you type on and the window you stare out of are the same thing"

--
Jon Crowcroft