I know the feeling coming from the UK where rail is just a borderline scam. The prices are utterly insane, easily 300 GBP for a return ticket on a journey that takes an hour or two. They always claim it's needed to increase the prices but the trains remain old and decaying, service always crumbling more. All that does change is their security on ensuring people are paying the fairs :)
It's insane how it came to this, rail should be a very accessible form of public transport. It's no wonder we have such developed cities but the outer regions suffer, when they're so vastly disconnected. And again all it does it promote more traffic through car reliance. Nobody wins there.
RE: Train travel in the United States flat out stinks