In case you missed it, supporters of Amtrak turned giddy late last month when it was reported that the rail system set a record for ridership.

Amtrak trains carried more than 30 million passengers for the first time.

"LaHood lauds Amtrak ridership record," read one headline.

LaHood, of course, is Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood who said the Amtrak ridership numbers were helping the Obama Administration push for more high-speed railways in the U.S.

"One of the best advantages in our push for 21st-century American high-speed rail service has been the terrific passenger rail system already operated around the country by Amtrak," LaHood wrote in a blog posted on the U.S. Department of Transportation website.

"To increase speed and reliability, in many corridors we can put Americans to work upgrading the existing Amtrak network," LaHood said.

What LaHood and others who ballyhooed the Amtrak numbers failed to mention, or conveniently overlooked, was the fact Amtrak also lost a near-record amount of money in fiscal 2011.

The rail system is projecting an operating loss of $507 million for the fiscal year ended September 30 -- even more than its $420 million loss in 2010. Next year it expects to lose $616 million. Amtrak hasn't had a profitable year since it began operations in 1971.

A stunning fact about Amtrak is that the more riders it carries the more it loses.

Democrats in Congress have used the ridership numbers to argue against a Republican plan to privatize Amtrak service in the Northeast, which is the agency's only quasi-profitable region.

Wendell Cox, a public policy consultant with Illinois-based Demographia and a rail transit critic, says Amtrak is a far more costly option when compared to megabus.com, the private intercity motorcoach service that launched in April 2006 and operates in about 50 major cities.

If someone were to purchase an Amtrak ticket for a Nov. 7 trip from Detroit to Chicago and then return the same day, the cost would be $32 each way, or $64 round trip. But Cox cites a 2008 study by the Pew Charitable Trusts that reports Amtrak lost $55 per rider on each leg of the Detroit-Chicago route. Cox says thats $110 per roundtrip that taxpayers subsidized in 2008.

By comparison, a roundtrip from Detroit to Chicago and back again on megabus would take two extra minutes each way, but the megabus roundtrip ticket typically costs $25.

Cox said Amtrak subsidies are hard to track but, judging by the Pew study, the Amtrak subsidy for one passenger could fund more than four passengers on megabus on the Detroit-to-Chicago roundtrip.

"High-quality bus service, featuring on-board high-speed wireless internet, costs passengers less between Detroit and Chicago and takes about the same time," says Cox. "There is a big difference, however. Train riders are subsidized by taxpayers, while bus riders pay their full fare. In a nation that needs to cut unnecessary spending, Amtrak should be at the top of the list."

On occasion, LaHood has not only ignored Amtraks financial realities but has publicly misstated them.

At a Washington Post transportation conference last month, he said Amtrak was profitable. Earlier in the year, speaking in Indiana, LaHood said Amtrak's success shows that America should build high-speed rail. "Amtrak is doing very well," asserted LaHood. "They're making money, that wasn't true a few years ago."

This led BoydGroup, an aviation consulting firm, to say, "This guy is lost in space." BoydGroup points out that Amtrak loses hundreds of millions annually, which is actually underreported because Amtrak counts state subsidies as "revenues."

In fairness to LaHood, he may have been misquoted and may have been talking about the Boston-to-Washington Acela, not Amtrak as a whole. According to Amtrak's September 2010 ridership report, the Acela covered its operating costs in 2010. In fact, it earned $100 million more than its operating costs. This does not mean, however, that it made a profit.

First, under "Capital Charge," the ridership report lists only "n/a," meaning not available. When these charges, including interest, are counted, the Acela would not appear nearly as profitable.

Second, unlike most proposed high-speed rail routes, the Acela shares most of its costs -- track maintenance, stations, ticket agents -- with slower-speed trains which Amtrak calls "NE Regional Trains."

These lost money in 2010 and every other year. To run the Acela, these costs would have to be paid whether the slower trains are there or not, so it is hard to argue that the Acela really makes money. It covers its operating costs only because it shifts half of those costs onto other, money-losing trains.

Bottom line: Amtrak continues to prove there's "Washington, D.C. math" and real math. Meanwhile, the federal budget barrels down the track out of control with no light at the end of the tunnel.