Comment by panick21_

> Yet its prohibitively expensive here

If it was 'prohibitively expensive' then why do so many people use and why is usage increasing?

Unless you buy individual tickets all the time its really not that expensive.

And depending on how you organize and finance it you can make it really cheap, see Belgium.

Its a hell of a lot cheaper then driving.

For a whole society, to primarly use trains, instead of primarily using cars is WAY, WAY CHEAPER!

> Case point Switzerland, the train country of this world.

This might be the case but Switzerland still spends decades and decades under investing in trains. The Bahn 2000 project was a huge success, but it was a success driven by minimal investment.

If a country like Switzerland had contentiously invested in high quality rail since WW2, we would be in a completely, competently different situation.

> For weekend trip ie to mountains they (+ post buses where trains don't go) are very restrictive which is understandable, but car becomes a must anyway.

And yet I have lived my whole live without a car and only rarely drive in the car with somebody else.

Yes, only trains as the only thing isn't a solution. That clear to anybody, but you can decently do a hell of a lot. And you can do much, much more then Switzerland is currently doing.

For example, we are 'the train country' but we don't even have a high speed rail line.

That somebody can say 'the train country' with a serious face about Switzerland only shows how utterly under-invested rail was since the 1930 in most countries.