Passenger trains can only operate efficiently in areas of extremely high population density. If I’m living somewhere serviced by trains, then everywhere I go, I’ll be in a crowd.

I’m enough of an introvert that this sounds like an extraordinarily uncomfortable proposition. I’d need an exorbitant financial benefit to even consider it, and that’s not going to happen. Instead, I’m expected to pay a very high premium for the “privilege” of being miserable everywhere I go.

No thanks, I’ll stay out here in the sticks.

I suspect those are mostly outposts. Rail junctions. Water stops for the old steam trains. Remote mining towns. Places that either provided services to railway operation, or primarily needed freight service rather than passenger.

And I agree: I would love to live in a small railroad town. But I would move out long before that town had enough people to justify commuter rail service.