I use trains up here in the
Northern Rail franchise area (plus others, depending on direction and extent of the trip). I have a handy pre-paid pass, less than £30 for travel on road or rails across the county for an entire
week, for no extra costs no matter how much travelling I use it for. It saves me enough in petrol (and parking charges, probably also wear and tear) to be worthwhile to get and use, at the expence of some waiting around and/or not being quite so door-to-door for such journeys.
But, looking at actual journey-ticket ptices: Assuming that SR price is £50 return, compare and contrast with the price as low of £3 each for two singles (standard class) between Leeds and Manchester, as a random Northern Rail example (not on my regular itinery, and my pass wouldn't cover any part of that, but it was my first stab at an equivalent journey), in two weeks' time (between Christmas and New Year, so might not be entirely representative of the regular cost
1) for a journey of maybe 90 minutes and 45 miles.
Brighton and London (60 to 90 minutes, 60 miles) is a tad over £10(x2) for the 'same' experience in the same period.
York and Manchester (70 miles, 105 minutes or less), is £17.50, but that's on a higher-class train (Trans-Pennine Express) that isn't the same cattle-truck experience, but is my next (and final, for now) stab at matching for distance.
But let's look at Leeds to London (single, standard class but expect
a seat, Virgin East Coast). That's £50, for 255-ish minutes and 170 miles of Travel down, maybe ⅓rd of the country, rather than a 'local' feeder town. I assume it's the same cost to get a single back again, rather than far, far cheaper/costlier
(*delete as inapplicable, according to taste).
(Leeds to London by coach, 27th December, is £6 single for National Express and £12 by Megabus, without trying to invoke any additional discounts like group bookings, etc, and is 4.5 to 5.5 hours.)
All trains in the North seem to have conductors/ticket-inspectors that actually operate the doors, letting the driver know to drive by (on the smaller trains at least) the application of a double-buzzer SIG/ACK handshaking between the two employees to indicate that all is well, above and beyond whatever lights blink in the cab regarding door status. It works!
I'm not sure what this tells us, especially w.r.t. Brexit, but throwing it out there, having just collated that information despite all common-sense...
1 Buy-it-now prices are £16x2, but a regular commuter would invoke some sort of discount or season ticket, and unfortunately I couldn't get a better future-time journey cost that doesn't get affected by the holidays...