Even cheaper than a flight and chump change compared to a private helicopter. Apples to oranges.

Somewhat cheaper than a personal jetpack.

You can fly in Europe for $20. Not all destinations, obviously.

> It's still a chunk less than a ~180 mile train ticket

Yes, after you've paid a premium for the vehicle. By the same logic is cheaper to take the bicycle, but we are not comparing apples to oranges.

I can go Manchester to London return tomorrow morning, 210 miles each way, change at Crewe, take about 3 hours each way, costs £36.30. £46.70 if I want to get there for 10am.

Petrol alone would cost about £65 in my car, parking another £20 at least, and it would be an hour slower each way.

In my country trains are very slow because the infrastructure wasn't properly maintained. So the train is only an option for very poor people and the homeless, with the latter not buying any tickets. Last time I used the train, it took 18 hours gfr a 700 km trip which we'd normally do in 11 hours by car. Nowadays it does 20+ hours.

Not very sympathetic of you; there are actually a lot of reasons why a train ticket won't work for many types of trips, but the biggest ones are that you need to carry more than one person, the train doesn't go where you need to go, or that it's quite inconvenient in that it doesn't leave or arrive when you need to.

The price was just given as a comparison.

A poorer person, who can't afford a car at all, has a £40 per-person advance-booked direct train as the optimum case. Their real cost is likely to be more with connections, or the time could be a lot more with a bus (£15-20) instead.