Private car, or train?

How you move decides the character of a journey. It is a design question, not a budget question.

The same route travelled by private car and by train produces two entirely different journeys.

What each does best

The car excels at unhurried point-to-point: luggage handled, nobody rushed, a detour costs one sentence. The train excels at the passage itself: a bento on the platform, roof tiles changing colour past the window, thirty minutes sharing a carriage with people who live here.

We usually mix them — luggage rides in the car, you ride the single most beautiful stretch of rail. Transit is not the gap between the itinerary. It is the itinerary.