Privatised rail firms gave shareholders more than £200m last year as fares rose above inflation, figures showed.
Train operating companies paid dividends totalling £218m in the year to March 2018, a 5% fall on the previous year.
The biggest payer was Virgin Train’s West Coast company, which dished out £51m to backers Stagecoach and billionaire Richard Branson.
First Group’s Great Western, which owns a franchise for services between London and the West Country, paid out £40m.
While £35m was paid by East Midlands Trains, and £30m by Southeastern.
Most rail operating companies did not pay a dividend, including crisis-hit Northern, according to figures from the Office for Rail and Road (ORR).
The payments came as rail fares rose by 3.2% last year, the highest increase in five years, and well above average inflation of 2.29%.
Stats from the ORR also found the number of overall passenger journeys declined by 1.4% during the year.
They showed government support for the rail industry rose to £3.8bn in the year.
Meanwhile punctuality plummeted towards the end of 2018 to a 13 year low.
Trade unions said the figures showed millions had been “siphoned out of the railway to greedy operators”.
Rail, Maritime and Transport union boss Mick Cash said: “This racket needs to end and our railways returned to public ownership with all of the cash generated re-invested in services and bringing fares back to an affordable level.”
Paul Plummer, chief executive of the Rail Delivery Group, which represents train operators and Network Rail, said: “After decades of increasing passenger numbers, record investment from the public and private sectors is going into improving rail services for the long term.
“These figures show that under the current partnership model, when journey growth slows, both the public and private sectors share financial risk which incentivises good performance for customers and the economy.”