Doesn't have to be artificial. The environmental damage from air travel is a real cost which could be put back on air travel.
In the US in particular, so many costs of automobiles are externalized that they genuinely appear to be a decent deal. They're not of course, we just pay for them through other esoteric routes instead of on the sticker.
In Germany and many other Western European countries these costs are accepted by society, while in Poland and many other Eastern European countries they are not, especially as they mostly affect the poor.
Non-commuting business travel is also very common, including to cities in neighbouring countries.
Personally I love trains, and they're my preferred means of travel. But they aren't very practical, especially when you have time limitations... and at the moment they are very expensive.
Obviously business people travel by train from say Glasgow to London, or London to Brussels, or Paris to Geneva, or Brussels to Amsterdam, or Amsterdam to Hamburg, or Berlin to Prague, or Prague to Budapest, or Vienna to Zagreb, or Stuttgart to Milan, or Milan to Marseille
Just because a business traveller might not do a 12 hour trip doesn't mean they don't do a 4 hour trip, and those 4 hour trips all work together in a reliable network.
Atlanta (5m) to Charlotte (1m) is 250 miles, Charllote to Richmond (1m) 300 miles, Richmond to Washington (5m) 120 miles. Population in brackets is the "urban area" population.
Seems crazy there isn't a half hourly service from Richmond to Washington DC to me, and an hourly service to Atlanta. The 6AM from Atlanta would go through, calling Charlotte around 8.30, Richmond by 12, and Washington by 1pm. The 7am would get to Washington for 2pm, etc.
Would many people do Atlanta to Washington? Probably not. Would they do Atlanta to Richmond, or Charlotte to Washington? Probably. At least with a european culture. 4 hours is deemed to be the "it's not worth flying" level.
(That said this year I've done London-Leipzig, Berlin-Geneva, Geneva-London, and New York-Miami for business on the "more than 6 hour" this year)
I wouldn’t count on it.
Most people travel during vacations and typically choose air travel over spending extra vacation days on a train. Likewise, bullet trains don’t make much economic sense across national borders, as few people commute daily between countries for work (in the European Union).
The only way to make train travel economical is by artificially increasing costs of air travel or the costs of owning a car. This has slowly been happening already, but will likely lead to a larger divide within the EU.