In photos from the USSR, I noticed that forests around the railway tracks are cut down in a pretty broad strip, perhaps 100 m wide?
This is an efficient countermeasure against the trees falling on tracks and taking the wires with them, but some countries aren't willing to cut down that much of a forest.
Not in the U.S., it isn't. There's not much forest left in the interior of the country that wouldn't be snapped up for residential real state if it weren't already privately owned for logging or as National Forest/National Park acreage. Or, it's so mountainous that it would be impractical to use for railways.
Clear cutting an acre gives you about $1500 for wood that took 20 years to grow. This is not an intensive industry in terms of what it generates per acre. I don't see how you are going to have to pay a lot to keep a strip clear on either side of the railroad. $75/acre/year would seem to be enough.
Ah interesting, I was actually thinking less about the cost for the maintenance but rather the cost for land acquisition. Even with imminent domain you're going to be fighting lawsuits for years, if there's any real infrastructure built in the new area you need that's going to be quite expensive to acquire and tear down, etc. but maybe they're already zoned out from building that close to the tracks
The context up-thread is removing trees in a wider strip to avoid them falling on the cables and tracks. It's not about tearing down buildings, which tend not to fall over in the wind.
This is an efficient countermeasure against the trees falling on tracks and taking the wires with them, but some countries aren't willing to cut down that much of a forest.