Calculating car miles for your carbon footprint is relatively straightforwards using google maps or taking a direct reading from the odometer, however calculating mileage by train is a bit more tricky. If you use the google public transport feature you get the time and route but not distance, and you can’t specify a particular mode of public transport.
So we recommend a great little website called RailMiles Engine by Swlines Ltd at www.mileage.railmiles.org. You can enter the station of origin, destination and also force a particular route with via points.
A good way to test that such a site really calculates the rail route and not the road, is to enter a journey from from Arnside to Grange-over-Sands. By car on google maps it is 14.6 miles, but by train over the viaduct it is only 3 miles.
![](<div xmlns:cc="http://creativecommons.org/ns#" xmlns:dct="http://purl.org/dc/terms/" about="http://s0.geograph.org.uk/geophotos/02/68/74/2687400_e62d9bef.jpg"><span property="dct:title">A train heading across Arnside Viaduct</span> (<a rel="cc:attributionURL" property="cc:attributionName" href="http://www.geograph.org.uk/profile/37389">Karl and Ali</a>) / <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/">CC BY-SA 2.0</a></div> "A train heading across Arnside Viaduct")
Photo by Karl and Ali
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