For what it's worth: Within the past two decades, Vienna, Austria, spent about 10 Billion Euros (about $12 Billion U.S.) on a new central railroad station. Yes, that's Billion with a B.

The new run-through station replaced two major stub-end terminals that were located at right angles to each other and now allows through traffic between most of Eastern and Western Europe. Previously, many of these trips had required a change of trains -- though a few trains made the time-consuming shift from one stub-end terminal to the other via transfer tracks. It also took over much of the traffic from a third stub-end station on the west side of Vienna. The latter station is now served mostly by commuter and other local trains.

The funding for the station came from local, federal (Austria), and EU sources and included the redevelopment of 10 city blocks to accommodate the new track alignment.

Austria is about the size of the U.S. state of Maine.

Berlin, Germany, also built a huge new central station after German re-unification, but Germany is a much larger country.

-- Ernest