We do have our share of actual small towns, but in the sense of rail investments yes that’s way too small. All too many major cities still don’t have rail here.

My town is 60k but we have two (soon to be three) stations and regular service by virtue of being a suburb of Boston. That’s a lot tougher of an argument for a rural state like New Hampshire, but they’ve been facilitating freight rail and preserving track so they’re in a good place. Most importantly this is an opportunity to take advantage of the “network effect” of just extending an exiting line rather than starting from scratch. All too much of the US can’t do that

Bostons commuter rail network has really been expanding for the last couple decades and this would be a natural extension

A related initiative has been to organize the region’s airports to take some of the air traffic off Boston. We already have commuter rail and Amtrak service south to Providence to help with that: not just to go there but to make it easier for more people to use that airport when they have to fly. Including Manchester New Hampshire Airport in Boston’s transit network would be a nice win.