That. That kind of distinction isn't universal. Some places just have a fused metro-plus-train system, in which you can slip in a $1 metro ticket, ride along changing metro trains for over a day across >1500km/1000mi, and pay outstanding fee at the exit, like on Japanese JR networks and metro trains interoperating with it.

I'm not saying which modes of thinking are more rational or superior or anything of that sort, just that the seemingly instinctive distinction you have described is not necessarily so to everybody.