As the speed of rotating machines increases and also their weight decreases, the coupling between lateral and torsional vibrations must be considered. In the past, rotordynamics and geardynamics have tended to treat the lateral and torsional vibrations of the system elements as separate and decoupled mechanisms. In the paper, the coupled lateral-torsional free and forced vibration of rotors trained by gears is analyzed using finite element method. Also the complicated variation of the meshing stiffness as a function of contact point along the line of action is estimated correctly. The gear mesh model is assumed to be linear with constant average mesh stiffness.