If you listen to some activists and look at the budget, you'd think that the intent of AmTrak is to lose as much money as possible without arousing suspicion.

There's a big difference between not turning a consistent profit and losing more money than it could possibly save us. If the point was really to serve as transportation that can compete with the automobile at the point of sale (so that it would actually take cars off the road), or in terms of speed (increasing the economic output of passengers), most AmTrak lines and railcar-miles fail that test.