I am from Brazil, and I wish our politicians were "bureucratic" as UK politicians regarding trains.

In the monarchy (yes, that long ago), the government believed railroads were the future of the country, and invested in them heavily (in fact half of current railroads in Brazil were built during the reign of the last emperor).

Later during the military dictatorship, the government again saw the point of railroads, and started investing in them again.

Then during our redemocratization, the federal government ended owning lots of railroad companies (example: The São Paulo railroads were given to the federal government as payment because of the São Paulo bank debts with the fedearl government), the federal government then went and shut down every single line that looked unprofitable, even ones that were unprofitable for obvious reasons (example: still under construction, thus zero revenue).

Now we need trains BADLY, but even to use old trains is impossible, for example 0.5% of the country area has 40 million people (out of 200 million in the country total), yet there is nowhere near enough trains for it, most of the transportation is by road (including all the issues of ever increasing absurd traffic, and accidents, one of the highest amounts in the world) or air (São Paulo has the dubious distinction of highest number of helicopters in the world, because road transport is so unsafe, because of accidents and crime, that people that can afford going by helicopter go by helicopter).

My parents live in Valinhos, I live near a train station in São Paulo, the train track near my home passes behind my parents home, yet I cannot do this simple trip, because not only the track is overgrown and unmaintained, but the government decided to repurpose some stations for other uses, and paved over or cemented over the tracks, the sad thing is we have the tracks there, we have the demand, and we have the trains (in storage, the military government bought lots and lots and lots of then bleeding edge electric trains), but everyone sees it as an almost impossible task to fix it.

Also comparing São Paulo subways to other countries is not even funny, São Paulo city proper has 11 million people, this is São Paulo subway+trains: http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-N0nE1VbO69E/USpnqXhm5fI/AAAAAAAAAB...

note this map has some other whole cities in it (Jundiaí is a city, also is the city where the track is paved over... the Ruby track is the one that passes behind my parents house, if it was still in use).

Now london: http://www.projectmapping.co.uk/Reviews/Resources/specialrep...

Paris centre (not the whole city): http://www.urbanrail.net/eu/fr/paris/paris-centre-map.png

Tokyo: http://www.bento.com/pix/subway/tokyosubway2011.png

At least São Paulo is not bad as Salvador (4 million people, only the solid red line currently exists, the rest is planned or under construction) http://www.tribunadabahia.com.br/upload/20141104015725_mapa-...

Or Campinas (2 million people in the metro area, has several rail lines already built, stations in almost all cities of the metro area and in the biggest neighbourhoods, but has only a single train running, it is a coal train, and most people using it are tourists wanting to have a train trip, usually parents wanting to show their children how it is to travel by train).