Two ways to go: trains v planes

By Amy Cooper

There's a reason why Kylie did "The Loco-motion". Train travel, in the words of the song (a much catchier party-starter than "Leaving on a Jet Plane"), has "a little bit of rhythm and a lot of soul". Rhythm: that gentle clickety-clack rocking motion, so much kinder to your body than a hurtling airborne sardine tin. Trains have seats. Planes have torture devices only a 15th-century Grand Inquisitor could love. After 13 hours in economy, I'll tell you anything if you'll just let me out.

But on a train, you can get out - whenever and wherever you like. For those with time and a wandering spirit, rail travel offers spontaneity like no other public transport. Hop off at the next station, explore, then jump on another train when you're done - all without a parachute. On a plane, when you're seated next to Beelzebub wearing a toddler suit, your only hope for survival is sound-blocking headphones. On a train, you can move six carriages down or at least visit the buffet car for something to numb the pain.

No matter how insufferable your fellow train passengers, there's always relief in gazing through the window. You're immersed in the landscape, fully aware of distance and place. On a plane, it's blinds down as soon as dinner's done - and besides, when you've seen one cumulus you've seen them all. Up there, you could be anywhere.

Flying doesn't always win the race. I recently rode the Eurostar from London to Paris and, door-to-door, the timing was the same. I boarded and disembarked in city centres, no schlep to airports and interminable pre-flight processing. As for luggage, I rest my case. I can, because it isn't lost, and I know this because it travelled beside me all the way.

Sure, there's luxury aloft for the lucky few, but I'll see your business class and raise you a junior suite on the sumptuous Maharaja Express, known as "the palace on wheels", or the golden-era glamour of the Venice-Simplon Orient Express. Ah, the Orient Express, epitome of train travel's elegance and ambience. Murder has never been so classy. From Agatha Christie to Alfred Hitchcock, great storytellers have been inspired by rolling stock. Snakes on a Plane? Give me Strangers on a Train.

And give me Brief Encounter, too - because rail romance begins at the platform. Airports are giant shopping malls, but railway stations are palaces and monuments, like St Pancras, Grand Central and Gare de Lyon.

Could Celia Johnson and Trevor Howard have yearned to a Rachmaninoff soundtrack at gate 53 after two hours in the security queue? The best airport romance movie you'll get is Tom Hanks in The Terminal, which was exactly that.

Kylie was right. Trains have soul. Which is why they have all the best, ahem, tracks. Remember - there is no "soul plane".

By Mal Chenu

When the Wright brothers took to the skies in 1903, trains had already been running for a hundred years. Which is appropriate, because if you'd rather go somewhere by train, you're going to need a big head start.

I've done the Indian Pacific from Sydney to Perth twice and traversing the continent in this level of comfort is one of the great journeys. The thing is, in a fraction of the time it took to reach the first stop at Broken Hill, I could have flown to Perth. And by the time the Indian Pacific crawled into Perth, I could have also spent a couple of days in Margaret River.

To put this another way - and in another hemisphere - in the time I spent on the Indian Pacific, I could have flown to London or New York, checked in to my hotel and watched the changing of the guard or toured the Empire State Building.

I've trained around Switzerland too, and the scenery is spectacular there too, especially if you like your mountain views regularly punctuated by the insides of tunnels.

Don't get me wrong. I like trains. Thomas the Tank Engine did as much parenting of my son as I did and I always try to buy Marylebone and Fenchurch Street when I play Monopoly. Choo-Choo Bars are awesome.

Now, in order to fairly compare trains and planes, we can't just measure Eurostar against Ryanair; or the Shinkansen against Scoot. Boutique train travel is expensive, so it's only fair to contrast it with business class flights.

The joy of turning left - instead of right - when you board a plane is beyond compare. The fawning is first class in business class. (I'm sure it's even more obsequious in first class but that remains a mystery to most of us.)

Take a business class flight, and in a few relaxing hours - after a stint in the lounge, a welcome aperitif, a few movies, a sleep, a decent meal, another sleep, another decent meal and a coming-in-for-a-landing digestif - you'll arrive refreshed and relaxed, not just a few stations down the track, but literally anywhere in the world.

And let's not forget how actually utterly amazing it is to be up in the air in the first place - cruising across the planet at a thousand kilometres an hour, 10,000 metres above the ground (or 9997 metres above the trains).

A lot of trains long to be planes anyway. Why do you think they call it the "Flying" Scotsman? And don't give me the high culture of Murder on the Orient Express. Let's see Hercule Poirot deal with Snakes on a Plane.

Trains are all very well but I just can't keep track.

The next time I want to go somewhere, I'll be leaving on a jet plane, as long as it's the pointy end of an Airbus A380.