Amtrak has not been “funding-starved for decades.” https://ti.org/antiplanner/?p=1502. Amtrak is publicly subsidized about the same as the average for Western European rail systems.

“The report estimated operating subsidies over a nine-year period between 1995 and 2003. A report from the European Union, Panorama of European Transport, lists total rail passenger kilometers for 1995, 2000, and 2004. I averaged those and divided them into the average annual subsidies. Converting to miles results in subsidies ranging from 14 cents a passenger mile in the U.K. to 32 cents in Austria. France was 20 cents and the subsidy for nine western European nations as a whole averaged 22 cents. By comparison, Amtrak subsidies, figured the same way, averaged 21 cents per passenger mile.”