The trains in the UK are an outlier here. You're not wrong, it's outrageously expensive — it was cheaper for me to rent a car for 24 hours and drive from London to Bristol and back than it was to take the train. Between London and Newcastle it's sometimes cheaper to fly (and I don't even mean with a budget airline!). This is utterly insane. It doesn't need to be this way though. Trains work great in continental Europe. In fact the trains here in Poland are fantastic.

I'm a total petrolhead and I'm often irritated by the kind of cyclist that hates all cars and anyone who drives one, but I would like to see fewer cars on the road. Trains are an excellent way to achieve that goal (just not the way the UK does it).

This reminds me of Germany, where flights between Munich and Berlin are at a constant 40€(easyjet)/50€(Lufthansa) for booking next day, since the public train company has a 4hr service during "rush-hour" now (nextday booking costs 150€ without a discount card - which is 250€ for a 50% rebate for a year)

It's only cheaper because you're not paying for how much it will cost to get the combusted petrol back out of the air again. You're stealing that from future generations.