Going from city centre to city centre on business I find trains to be much more pleasant than flying or driving - even going to London from here in Edinburgh is worth it - the trip is fairly scenic (e.g. going through Durham) and not that much longer than flying.
Even there I think it depends on how you value your time.
If I take the train to visit my mother it's about a 3 hour trip, door to door, and costs about 50% more. But I have all that time available to work on other things that matter to me: homework, hobby projects, even pleasure reading. The net cost to me in terms of time I couldn't spend doing anything else is relatively small, and mostly consists of walking which isn't all bad since it counts toward the ol' daily 10,000.
If I drive it's only 2 hours' transit time, but in terms of actually getting stuff done with my precious time that's 2 hours of complete uselessness. From my perspective it's easily worth a measly 20 bucks to avoid that. Heck, I pay more than that just to get out of having to spend time cooking dinner more often than I care to admit.
There are audio books and podcasts, so it is not completely useless to drive. But compared to trains, you do lose the freedom. In a train, if I listen to an audiobook, it will be by choice, unlike driving. I guess there will be some point where time difference versus productivity would be worth it
I think that's a "you forgot Poland" response, though. I'm an avid audiobook listener. I particularly like listening to them while I'm exercising or doing housework.
But the occasions when the thing I'd most like to do is just sit there and passively listen to an audiobook while staring off into space are few and far between. And I don't feel that doing it while sitting in a car is a significant improvement over doing it while sitting on the sofa.
Going from city centre to city centre on business I find trains to be much more pleasant than flying or driving - even going to London from here in Edinburgh is worth it - the trip is fairly scenic (e.g. going through Durham) and not that much longer than flying.
Mind you - I agree it's not a cheap option!