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I'm writing this sitting in comfort on an Inter7City train heading to Inverness on my way to Wick for our AGM at the beginning of July. Three weeks ago I made the same journey by car to visit the track renewal works at Brora. I need to confess that although I'm a rail campaigner I also really enjoy driving, but as I sit here in MkIII comfort, listening to BBC Sounds (with ear buds!) gazing at the wonderful, ever-changing view from the train, the contrast is striking. I'm going to arrive in Wick after a long, but enjoyable day.

Unlike some people in the media who have said that they're scared to drive on the A9 because it's so dangerous, I don't see a problem with the road itself - there can be dangerous drivers on any road. However, when you drive you are constantly engaged with watching your speed and looking out for all the vehicles in front and behind. The one thing you have no chance of doing is relaxing and enjoying the scenery.

All this is totally obvious of course, but still worth celebrating. For a long journey, rail is the way to travel. Staring at the vehicle in front and white lines on tarmac just cannot compete.

The trouble is of course that once you own a car you are committed to its expense, which might influence your choice.

If modal shift is to be achieved the government must act. It's a sobering thought that the last major investment in the Highland Main Line took place around 50 years ago - and that was just the replacing of 30 miles of double track that had been removed a while before. The Far North Line hasn't received significant infrastructure investment for 112 years when just six miles of double track was installed by the Highland Railway, which, being a limited company, simply didn't have the money to do what it would have wished.

In the UK we are now returning to the rather obvious concept that railways are an essential shared facility, best paid for out of taxation, just like roads. The problem for railways in the Highlands is to get politicians to remember this - and to explain to accountants that you can't simply divide the cost of something by the number of people who use it to ascertain whether it would be money well-spent.

Of course a judgment is to be made - no-one would suggest that a half-hourly 100 mph train service between Thurso and Wick should be provided, just because Glasgow and Edinburgh have this. All that's required is common sense, along with a feeling of obligation to provide an appropriate service, no matter where in Scotland people live.

To be fair to Transport Scotland, which is charged with allocating limited funds to rail investment, it does assess proposals with more subtlety than simply cost divided by population, but then gets itself in a mess trying to quantify in advance the monetary value of a project. Benefit/cost projections for railway projects, such as rebuilding a section of the Waverley Route are now legendary in their failure. Perhaps rail project plans just need to "game" the BCR process more successfully by inventing spurious equivalents to the monetary value of "driver frustration" used to justify the unnecessary dualling of the A9 (yes, as a driver of course I prefer dual-carriageway, but that's just selfish). "Passenger frustration" anyone? Or even "campaigner frustration" - that must be worth something!