Take some Baltic countries or some far east Europe countries and your commute from city A to city B in a train would be a mild annoyance at best and a nightmare at worst. You’d also be lucky if train goes more than 3 times a day or if trains go more than just capital to 2nd biggest city
Am also from Eastern Europe (Lithuania). It’s not that bad, however, they’re slow. I don’t remember it going over 130km/h (i might be mistaken) and it does quite a lot of stops.
A train journey from Vilnius to Klaipeda (310km) takes 4 hours 40 mins - 5 hours 10 mins (depending on the train). Same journey by car takes 3 hours 10 mins. Now account for what it also takes to get to the train station and from it to your destination (made worse because cities themselves have pretty meh public transport also) and you see why everyone chooses cars.
The cities that you’re traveling from and to have to have good public transport / bike infrastructure / walk-ability for them to make sense.
Am also from Eastern Europe (Lithuania). It’s not that bad, however, they’re slow. I don’t remember it going over 130km/h (i might be mistaken) and it does quite a lot of stops.
A train journey from Vilnius to Klaipeda (310km) takes 4 hours 40 mins - 5 hours 10 mins (depending on the train). Same journey by car takes 3 hours 10 mins. Now account for what it also takes to get to the train station and from it to your destination (made worse because cities themselves have pretty meh public transport also) and you see why everyone chooses cars.
The cities that you’re traveling from and to have to have good public transport / bike infrastructure / walk-ability for them to make sense.