The Deventer stop is not there primarily for locals in Deventer. It's there to service the entire eastern half of the Netherlands. Scrapping it would mean those in e.g. Groningen would first have to travel for 3h to Amsterdam.
The regular service between Amsterdam and Berlin already has some trains not stopping in Apeldoorn. The European Sleeper between Brussels and Berlin (via Amsterdam) does not stop in Apeldoorn nor Hengelo already.
What? Erfurt has direct ICE connections to Leipzig/Berlin, Dresden, Frankfurt, and Nürnberg/München. It’s pretty well connected for a city of just 200k.
Ah so it's just really shitty to reach from Hannover/Braunschweig/Wolfsburg/Magdeburg - also it seems that there is no good connection to the whole Ruhr area
Well, it’s located in a basin and has lots of mountainous areas north, south, and west, so it’s kind of expensive building rails through there. It’s annoying as fuck to get there by car as well. I used to drive that a lot, Cologne – Erfurt, sucks big time.
I guess you could get a route via Kassel and Hamm. I mean, I’m all for it, but I don’t think that’s economically feasible for DB.
Improving the route Hannover – Leipzig would make sense, especially if they could finally upgrade the route Dresden – Prague (one of the most important cargo routes).
Hannover is just lucky. It sits on a giant plain right in the middle of the two axes Hamburg – „the South“, and Berlin – Rhein-Ruhr.