With the South East of England now having more cars than people, getting around using said conveyance is becoming more and more difficult. So facing a trip to Bristol I had the choice of three hours in the car or an hour and a half on the train. I decided therefore to save the planet and my sanity and ‘let the train take the strain’ as the old jingle goes. I mention this because as someone who has a company car the temptation is to always use the damn thing, but having seen my journeys time to and from London increase steadily over the years Britain’s underinvested rail network has begun to look more and more tempting. As an irregular user I have yet to sample the problems of huge delays caused by train breakdowns, signal problems or the wrong kind of leaves on the line. So I give it a thumbs up. It is not a rosy though. It’s expensive for a start, a return to Bristol is £84 whilst getting to and from Manchester will see you £174 lighter, yes there are cheaper tickets if you buy in advanced, but the best part of a hundred quid to get to Bristol is hardly going cause a mass migration of car drivers to the train. Also most the rolling stock is well past its best, the promise of swanky new trains has meant most rail companies are letting the current inventory slowly fall to bits. Privatisation hasn’t helped either. With all this in mind I still reckon it’s a better bet when travelling to and from London and hey, you can’t write your blog when driving.