Only the HBO shows on Max have the static. If you watch the garbage reality shows it isn’t there.

Cheap led tvs were like 1/5 the cost of Analog TVs. The digital switch over really finished them off too.

Really it’s the size/price that did it though. My buddy paid I think $3k for a maybe 40” Trinitron in 99-2000. It probably weighed 200lbs. Looked amazing at the time but it was probably only months before big leds came out. Plasma might have been a thing then but we’re like $10k+

If you go by length instead of ridership it seems extremely plausible. Australia is a big place and building 2 lanes for mostly freight trains is an unnecessary expense.

Sidings/loops/passing tracks, allow trains to pass on a single track, and since things can be more regular scheduled (ideally anyway) with trains, they can work well enough and with much less track building needed.