They are dufus heads, though not as bad as California.
Someone screwed up.
They had just laid some new tracks or something to convert it to high speed.
All the evidence points to them not being prepared properly for a high speed train, and knowing Washingtonians, rushing into it so they could look liberal-cool to the rest of the country.
No sabotage. Just Washingtonian liberals.
The journalists who write this stuff don't know diddlysquat about railroads.
Simulated runs were done for weeks to make sure the line was safe and that the posted speed limits were right for the line.
I caught something on the radio where the guy said something like “When asked if this train had a _________ device on it, the Amtrak spokesman said that it had just recently been installed. However, it was not turned on at the time.”