As for Michael taking the train instead of a plane in GFII, I believe that it was Turnbull who pointed out that Michael probably wanted to travel incognito because someone was trying to kill him, and therefore found it easier to do so by train than traveling on a plane.
But wouldn't that work against his favor should it leak to Roth? A train from Nevada to Miami is surely to be at least a good 20 hours or so. But, then again, if the only one he told was Tom, nobody would have found out. With Mike's manipulation of Tom in the "you're the only one I can completely trust" speech, Tom had no itentions at all of betraying Michael.
