Sensible talk on rail fares

With all the current wailing, gnashing of teeth and casting into the outer darkness on the subject of the rising railway fares in the UK, Jackart talks a remarkable amount of pithy sense on the subject:

There has been an astonishing amount of bollocks being spoken about train-fare rises. Especially commuters, whose season tickets are rising by hundreds of pounds. "The trains are crowded" they complain. Yes, and cutting rail fares will help that, how exactly?

Nail, meet head. Crowding of trains is a signal; a signal that the price for travelling on that particular train is too cheap. If peak hour trains are crowded, and off-peak trains are quieter, then peak fares should rise to force people at the margins to choose the less-crowded trains. Bingo, less crowdedness and more income which could (at least theoretically) be fed back into improved and extended rail infrastructure.