We never really got out of the recession. The employment/population ratio has been flat since 2008. Median real wages have been somewhere between flat and declining. Things aren't getting worse, but they aren't getting better either; they're just keeping up with the population growth. There's no real "recovery" yet.
GDP isn't a trustworthy number due to the way the value of "financial services" is guesstimated. Essentially, rent extraction is mischaracterized as production. This hasn't been discussed widely enough, but I've dug through it in tremendous detail, and I can assure you that it is true.
http://criticallegalthinking.com/2012/07/26/finances-contribution-to-gdp-another-sleight-of-hand/
http://tcf.org/blog/detail/graph-how-the-financial-sector-consumed-americas-economic-growth
For this reason, I prefer to look at hard numbers: tons of steel produced, tons of grain produced.... or carloads of rail shipments!
So, for example, American steel production is up slightly over last year, but still not very good. Steel imports are up sharply over last year, indicating growth in demand, but with the production being done abroad.
As for the railroad sector, looking at the hard numbers, it is *booming* -- and furthermore, it was booming even *during* the crash. Railroads are enjoying growth at the expense of trucks, airlines, pipelines, etc., stealing market share away.