By design, they are priced almost the same as airline tickets, when travelling to different countries. There's a huge economy centered around air travel (air lines, airports, shops inside airports).

When I was living in the UK, a train ticket between London and York would cost me around 50-90 pounds. I found a bus company that would do the trip for the same length of time for only 12 pounds. The bus would take you from York to Loughborough (half the way to London), and then we'd get off, be handed train tickets (included in the 12 pound price) and continue the rest of the journey by train. Proving that the straight-up train ticket was probably twice or triple as expensive as it should have been.

30min train ride in switzerland cost me 60-70 franken, its insane as a foreigner. i believe it was a day ticket, but still