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A direct comparison of rail vs car is like comparing sausages with bananas. Rail journeys are not door to door, and any rail journey involves shoulder journeys to & from the train. There is one way which does come close, and that is to use AA or DfT running costs figures for the car and add the shoulder journey costs.to the rail trip. One regular trip I make is Glasgow to Guildford - just a bit short of 1000 miles round trip - cost this at say 30p/mile (tightwad) for a car it comes to £300, since I cycle the 5 miles or so to and between stations each way stick on £10 to the rail fares - walk-up anytime the total just under £125, buying in advance pulls it down substantially to under £60.- not bad as the door-to-door cost at 1/5th of the car one, and many times safer. Anna Semelyn and Richard Armitage have done a lot of work on costing personal travel and Anna' book cutting your car use shows the way that most people can save a few thousand pounds per year through not owning a car and buying their travel effectively. Dave Holladay Glasgow