PAUL SOLMAN:

But they're hurrying up in an America of slowed-down productivity, the amount of output per hour of work rising at just 1.3 percent a year since 2007, compared to more than double that rate from 1947 to 1973.

One cause, America's crumbling infrastructure, like our passenger rail system, some of which dates to the Civil War, causing delays that hamstring the economy.

Wick Moorman worked his way to the top of the Norfolk Southern Freight Railroad, before retiring last year, returning to work recently, at a dollar a year, to steer and revive Amtrak. Riding the Acela back to New York, he insisted it's not just our railroads that need work.