Train travel in Europe is comfortable, reliable and fun - and the Eurail pass sounds like a great concept. Eurail allows you to buy one ticket that gives you unlimited travel, anywhere in Europe, any time, on almost any train or ferry you like, for the duration of your ticket. Try doing that with an airline ticket!

But is it really the passport to freedom it sounds like?

Ten or fifteen years ago, it was. These days, that freedom is much more restricted, mainly due to booking regulations. I would still recommend the train as one of the best ways to travel around Europe - but Eurail may no longer be the best way to pay your fares.

Eurail passes come in various combinations of countries and timeframes - the most popular Select Pass covers a number of days over a period of a month or months. For instance, you might buy a pass that gives you 10 days' travel spread over 3 months in France, Spain and Portugal. The pass has 10 blank date boxes on it - and you don't fill them in until you hop on a train. Each time you travel, you fill in today's date. Once you've done that, you can travel on as many trains as you like for the rest of that day.

A nice bonus is that if you hop on a train after 7pm, you fill in tomorrow's date. So a couple of times, we were able to take a sleeper trip halfway across Europe overnight, enjoy a scenic ferry ride, then finally hop on another train to arrive at our next destination before 7pm that evening, all on one "day" of the pass.

A good example of the "after 7pm" trick was my "day" in Switzerland on my first Eurail trip.

I boarded a sleeper train in Barcelona at 9pm, bound for Geneva. Arriving the next morning, I stepped into a downpour - I couldn't even see the famous lake through the fog! So I jumped back on the first local train that came along.

That was the beginning of a magical trip through the Swiss mountains. The fog cleared but the rain didn't, so I kept swapping from train to train, criss-crossing the mountains, past spectacular peaks, ice-blue lakes and green flower-dappled pastures. My camera has never worked so hard! And it didn't cost me a cent, because every one of those separate train trips counted as one Eurail “day” - which I had already used to get to Geneva in the first place.

The widespread upgrading of Europe's trains has spoiled the carefree nature of the Eurailpass. You're now required to book a seat on most trains, which means it's no longer possible to leap off one train and jump straight on the next, as I did in Switzerland.

Non-Eurail travellers can use a multilingual self-service machine at the train station to book their seat, and be on their way in minutes. With a Eurail pass, you have to queue at the ticket office to book your seat. Queues can be long - plus you have to pay a booking fee, which is sometimes substantial.

These extra booking fees come close to making the Eurail pass uneconomic for anyone over 25 - because over that age, you can only buy a first-class Eurail pass (which is, obviously, more expensive than a second-class pass). On the new trains, the second-class carriages are almost indistinguishable from the first-class ones - often the only difference is in the perks, such as a free meal or entertainment. On my last trip, I spot-checked fares on the self-service machines and found that for some trips, I could have bought a second-class fare for not much more than the Eurail booking fee!

Another worrying development is that rail companies are starting to limit the number of tickets available to Eurail passholders, just like airlines limit the seats for frequent flyers or discounted airfares. People are increasingly being turned away at the booking office because all the Eurail seats on a train are fully booked – only to find, if they buy a normal ticket, that the train is half-empty.

European rail travel - even in second class - is now more comfortable (and much less stressful) than European air travel, so I'm sticking with it - but probably not with Eurail.  I can travel almost as cheaply - and avoid the queues - if I buy my tickets as I need them.

If you can commit to a firm itinerary, it's worth getting a price to pre-purchase tickets for your individual train trips - you may find it's cheaper than a Eurail pass and less hassle.

Oh, and if you're comparing prices with airline travel - remember that airports (especially for discount carriers) are often a long way from the city, so don't forget the cost of transport to and from the airport, which can be expensive due to the distance. Not to mention the extra travel time and hassle compared to train stations, which are usually in the middle of town.

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All text copyright Marisa Wright. Photos with thanks to Miss Rogue and Do Make Say Think, both on Flickr.com