Yes, I thought it might go there, but a "slow, breakup / devolution" is better than a "quick, full obliteration."

What I was trying to do was to see if the country-level components might (still? yet?) be fashioned / crafted into something that is a rail relation that is both sensible in a rail sense, a "this is how we do rail around here" (European countries) sense AND an OSM "well-formed rail relations" sense.

Maybe this (now "these") are not that:  if these are to be deleted, well, at least the railway=rail elements remain.