Celebrating our victory in the Cold War — how we’ve done since then is a little more complicated — we like to think about the unfortunate Russians, these days watching their Soviet-era infrastructure crumble and slowly riding nowhere on the Trans-Siberian Railroad.

In fact, some people were discussing that just the other day — on the brand-new high-speed rail system between Moscow and St. Petersburg. What they were discussing was the country that really has transportation problems.

As Ansgar Brockmeyer, head of public transit business for Siemens, the German company that built the new line, explained to The New York Times, the United States “is a developing country in terms of rail .¤.¤.”

That’s us. Leading the world in cell phone game applications, but the Namibia of high-speed trains."  For the complete article, please click here.