The other thing is that industries are nationalised for the benefit of the people, not to make a profit. If they make a profit all well and good if not it doesn't matter. It's the working classes getting some small return on all those taxes they pay.
Very true, and that's what Dr Beeching couldn't see. He just had his business head on & was just motivated by profit. He forgot about the people that would be cut off or inconvenienced by their station closures and that it was a rail service, not purely business.
He also didn't have the benefit of hindsight. I don't think there is any way he, or any city planners for that matter, could have foreseen just how much traffic there would be on the roads these days. Yes, they had the 'car is king' attitude, but they probably thought along the one car per household lines, and they could not have known how wide cars would get making narrow streets the congestion bottlenecks they are now. He coudln't know that in such a short time that it would be quicker by train (or bicycle) than by car & how much pollution there would be from the cars that he saw as making train travel irrelevant.