As a German, I've heard the "but it's difficult to build new lines" excuse many many times. While it's true, we've had the lines. The little town I was born in

As a German, I've heard the "but it's difficult to build new lines" excuse many many times. While it's true, we've had the lines. The little town I was born in had a railway connection. We're 7000 people here. They built a serious bridge and a tunnel to make the connection around 190x or something. The next town over, around 30.000 people, had several stations and additional narrow-gauge track connection all important local factories. Some of them had a direct connections to the "big" railway, too. So while it may be true that it's difficult to build new railway now, we wouldn't have that problem if we had not let it all go to waste in the 80s and 90s. It's such a shame. The old bridges and tunnels are out here in the woods, I recently hiked there.