RE:RE:RE:Railroad academic study Thanks Grenouille, that is a very good point about the right of way.
With building railroads and/or pipelines getting the routes and right of way is the hard part. The Germans did the bulk of this when they occupied Namibia; so it is a lot easier to upgrade than start from scratch. The pipeline of course is the optimum way to go. I would think being near a railroad it would be faster to bring equipment, pipe, and workers in than starting fresh; thus a huge advantage in cost savings and speeding development up!