It's very surprising to see that only 16 out of 67 non-Shinkansen lines are profitable for JR East.
I wonder what are the other lines that are losing a lot of money, besides the Iwaizumi and the Tadami lines that are mentioned in the article.
According to Toyo Keizai (2012-2-25) the biggest money losers are the Ouu line, Uetsu line, Yamada line and Ofunato line. All up in Tohoku. However the profits from the money-making lines, i.e. the Shinkansen and the Tokyo area lines, more than offset the operating losses from the backwater lines. And of course JR makes a lot of money from retailing, real estate and a host of other ancillary businesses.