In your country, is it generally better to travel by bus/coach or train?

[frankhammer]

Rail is dead. Buses or aircraft depending on your financial situation or location.

[robertb]

Air or car in the US. Few trains except in a limited area of the NE. Buses if you want to study American crazies and most city bus stops are in the war zones.

I refuse to be fondled and forced to feel like a criminal by the TSA so no place I can't drive.

[Creoda]

Both are equally convenient, depending on where you need to go. Country train services have also been made significantly more affordable in the last year, now cheap as chips. One plus of buses is that you rarely have to sit facing strangers or stand, a reality of metropolitan trains. The rail service in Victoria at least is good, probably one of the better ones in the world without being high-speed, but interstate rail in Australia is terrible and always has been (all states have different track gauges believe it or not, going back to when they were separate colonies), all other options for interstate travel are better.