Comment by Theodores

The railway is the historical norm, roads as we know them needed rubber tyres to really 'get traction'. This was a late innovation compared to rail.

Rails for high speed with safety, ride comfort and advanced signalling to maintain a scheduled service is a very different proposition to some temporary rails to get to the front line of a war, a new coal seam or forest 'port'. The latter is much easier compared to a road but now we have big machines for the latter, not the former.