Could I swap rail for road to commute?

I drive a diesel. Yes, my bad.

But our Clean Commute campaign was a great opportunity to ditch my usual mode of transport and see just how much of a carbon footprint reduction I could make over the course of a working week.

My daily commute to Ayr by car is an 88- mile round trip so, based on a five- day week, my mileage stands at 440. That’s a fair amount of diesel and emissions coming out the exhaust.

I cheated a little bit, though, driving to the train station each day and back and the round trip to the station stands at seven miles. Over five days that is 35 miles but by my reckoning 440- 35 equals 405.

But there is much more than car mileage that needs to be factored in too. More about that later.

Anyway, here is how I got on. Monday – Disaster. Cows on the line near Lochwinnoch mean a delayed train then a cancellation at Kilwinning. The result? I’m 40 minutes late for work. Not the start I wanted.

Tuesday – Fine. A road accident happened between Whitletts and Holmston roundabout, resulting in gridlock in and out of Ayr. Me? I took the train and glided into Ayr Central with 15 minutes to spare. Had I taken the car, I’d no doubt have been caught up in the The Ayrshire Post Clean Commute campaign, which runs throughout June, is designed to encourage more people to reduce their carbon footprint and help tackle climate change.

This week senior reporter Paul Behan tells us how he managed a whole working week using the train instead of his car.

road chaos – as were several of my colleagues.

Wednesday – Fine. No problems at all and nothing to report.

Thursday – Okay- ish. Slept in somewhat then had to take my son to the childminder’s. That resulted in me taking a later train and a 10- 15 minute late start.

Friday – Last day, yahoo! I welcome the weekend by rising early, taking an earlier train and arriving in Ayr Central around 8.27am in plenty of time for an americano and roll and sausage in Greggs. I suddenly remember, though, that my visit to Greggs and the items I purchased need to be declared in the grand scheme of things too.

So what were the positives about taking the train?

There were a few. I’m home about 20 minutes earlier than I normally would be if I had taken the car and battered up the A737. Taking the train is less stressful too, apart from my manic Monday incident with the cows on the line.

And the negatives?

The train is definitely more expensive. I forked out a staggering £ 70.50 for daily tickets, whereas my old Nissan Note can get me up and down from Ayr for around £ 45 worth of diesel.

So have I made any kind of impact on reducing my carbon emissions?

My results, combined with my home, the food I eat ( including a sneaky takeaway and the visit to Greggs), clothes I wear and other necessary living costs showed that I have used 15.3 tonnes of carbon in the last year. That is a shocking 155 per cent over the ideal target impact on the world, when measured against the 2020 target set by the UK Government.

The 2020 target outlines a goal of 10.5 tonnes of carbon use per individual per year. That truly shocked me.

But when you break it down my travel to and from Ayr by car accounted for 40 per cent of my total carbon use over the course of a year.

So I guess the moral of all this is: if we can all change a little, even in our lifestyle choices, the food we eat and the other purchases we make, we can accomplish a lot.

Why not see what your carbon footprint is by going to https:// footprint. wwf. org. uk/#. It breaks it down so easily for you and you may shocked by how much carbon you are using.

Remember: # cleancommute if you want to support us in our carbon footprint reduction quest.