Germany's Transport Minister wants to stop spending money on provincial stations with few passengers. Local politicians say that could leave passengers who live outside cities permanently cut off (link below.)
http://www.rmtbristol.org.uk/2007/10/privatisation_cuts_could_doom.html#more

The Financial Times Germany reported on Tuesday that Germany's Social Democratic Transport Minister Wolfgang Tiefensee has drawn up a position paper calling for drastic cuts in government subsidies stations receive.

The report says the plan involves discontinuing all subsidies for maintenance and improvements to stations where fewer than 100 people get on or off trains per day.

The station closure plan comes as Tiefensee readies legislation , to be put forth in 2008 , that would privatise parts of Germany's national rail system.

Local politicians , already wary of what privatisation could mean for their constituencies , are up in arms about proposed cuts.

"According to Tiefensee's criteria, we'd have to shut 53 percent of stations in our region," the transportation minister of Saxony-Anhalt , Karl-Heinz Daehre , told the Financial Times. "His plans are beyond discussion for Germany's federal states."

Advocacy groups also lambasted the plans , particularly reported that subsidies would be discontinued for stations with "complicated platforms," that is , containing ramps and other modifications for disabled passengers , if they did not meet a workday minimum of 1,000 passengers.

However , the transport minister's office has denied that part of the report , calling it "unfounded."