WASHINGTON -- Amtrak is celebrating 30 years on the rails this week. Some say there's nothing more romantic than riding the train. Others say, there's no bigger waste of your money, according to a report on NBC Nightly News.

A train with two passenger cars, two freight cars carrying pet food, and only one passenger, Denise Moore, epitomizes Amtrak's everyday fleecing of America.

Basically there are 70 seats on the train to Janesville and it ends up that Moore is queen for the day.

"I guess so," says Moore. "I guess I am."

But as a business person, as a taxpayer, "something is not right," says Moore. "Something needs to change."

It did. Amtrak cancelled the run after NBC rode the train in February. Yet, taxpayers continue to grease Amtrak's rails as they have for 30 years with $23 billion in subsidies, never close to turning a profit. There was another record loss last year, $944 million, a General Accounting Office (GAO) estimate.

"It is an endless siphoning of taxpayer dollars to subsidize a relatively few number of Americans," says Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona.

But why is that the case when more Americans than ever are travelling? An oversight board's answer points to "fundamental institutional flaws." The GAO tells NBC that Amtrak won't meet Congress' demand to be self-sufficient by the end of next year.

While there have been some recent improvements, Amtrak is chronically in crisis and Congress is always bailing it out. Again, the question is why? Critics like Joe Vranich, who quit Amtrak's reform council, says it's pork.

"The quid pro quo is that Amtrak adds a train through a congressman's district, and the congressman turns around and votes for the upcoming R10 billion Amtrak bailout legislation," says Vranich.

Amtrak president George Warrington denies the allegation.

"This business and this system is not politically grounded or motivated any more," says Warrington. "That's not the way I do business. This is about making money."

But it's more like raising money, with Warrington boldly asking Congress for another $30 billion over the next twenty years, lauding a plan to turn things around. The money is supposed to be used to replace dangerous civil war era tunnels and rickety bridges, making the new high speed Acela train its profit center. That is not easy, considering Amtrak loses an average $16.38 on every ticket.

"We do not have a national airline in this country, we do not have a national bus company," says Vranich. "It is proven now that a national railroad passenger system won't work."

With a 2003 Congressional deadline for self-sufficiency looming, critics say sell Amtrak to private industry or reorganize it -- anything to end a fleecing of America critics say is a great train robbery every day.