It’s an abuse of language to call this profit.
According to the BBC:
Network Rail, which runs Britain’s railway tracks and signals, is expected to announce it has made a profit for the first time in its history.
There is no sense in which we can call the excess subsidy that has been showered on this body a ‘profit’. Profit refers to your value added, to the amount by which you have made your customers’ lives better. Profit is not: compare your costs to the made up number which is what the government thinks it can get away with giving you, and if costs are smaller you win!
The very fact that subsidies are given to Network Rail means that it is NOT in profit. It would be in profit if it could fund itself by voluntary payments for services rendered to its customers. It CANT, so I have no idea where they get the cheek to say they are profitable.