In my opinion it should be higher priority because you loose a lot of resources, including FPs.
Sounds like you need to concentrate on cleaning out the deadwood from your friend's list and add some new friends.
Aid from your Town Hall, on the social interactions tab. Anyone left on your friend's list that still shows as needing aid after you aided from your Town Hall hasn't aided you in at least 6 days. Get rid of them. I usually clear out the deadwood once every week or two, too often may get rid of good friends that just had to step away for a few days.
For finding new friends, assuming you have invites left, I recommend looking in the tavern of some of your higher level friends and looking to see who is sitting there. Visit that person's city, and if their tavern isn't full it is a good assumption that they are active and will make a good friend. Send them an invite. If they accept, great. If they don't, don't stress over it and keep looking.
As an interim for your train until you get enough friends to keep your city motivated, use a self aid kit on your locomotive right after you collect (you don't need to do the whole train, just the locomotive).