Rails are too restrictive for real life? I'm not sure what you are trying to say here... Rails are widely used for real life around the globe. In many, many places rails significantly out perform cars to the point that people choose not to own cars.
Yes they don’t go everywhere, but in the UK we aren’t very spread out in our cities, towns and even suburbs, so it’s reasonable to expect quite a large number of people to be within walking or cycling distance of a tram stop.
You can do just fine on rails.
Sure, if you want to get into the rural mountains you might need to rent a car. But like, for most people rail will do you just fine.