You would be surprised how many people have that view.
There are large swaythes of the country who literally never travel by train. I live at the northern end of Thameslink in Bedfordshire. A while back my teenage son wen't to London for the day with some of his sixth form mates. One had NEVER been on a train before. Imagine what it is like further out of London.
The some people pay tax for education but don't have kids argument dosent really wash. For a start they themselves went to school and their kith and kin have kids.
When going by train is wholly alien, paying £10 billion a year out of taxes to support the *minority* who do rather grates.
Not that those who travel on Thameslink are subsidised by anyone. An annual season ticket from Flitwick to Bedford (one stop) costs £1824, compared with £1364 from Wigan to Manchester, about three times the distance.
Of course many don't travel. But even then I think there's a difference between not travelling and not finding it useful for their purposes and actively believing the network should be "shut down"; people can appreciate it might be useful for others. Also those who regularly travel by car, especially along trunk routes connecting cities should be thankful there aren't more cars on the road!
And yes London & SE generally (although less so since Covid) has helped the railways revenues, which is why a reduction in regular commuting and business travel and proved such an issue in industry fiancnes.