ANGRY commuters were left stranded on platforms and passengers packed into trains as Scotland's rail network buckled under the strain of the busiest day of the year.

Ticket staff struggled to cope with the number of people travelling yesterday and there were complaints of overcrowded trains as a Christmas shopping rush and the number of fans heading to a packed programme of Saturday football matches brought chaos to several areas.

Commuters spoke of overwhelmed stations and standing room only on several routes, while delays and cancellations were reported across the network, the most serious sparked by a signal failure between Linlithgow and Edinburgh.

ScotRail, run by the Dutch company Abellio, said it had laid on extra staff and trains to cope with the expected increase in travellers on what was widely predicted to be the busiest shopping day of the year, just a week before Christmas.

However, many travellers said that efforts to keep people moving had failed miserably, with ticket inspectors unavailable at stations or able to move through packed trains, forcing people to queue to get past barriers manned by an inadequate number of staff.

Passengers took to social media in their droves to complain to ScotRail, which is already currently under fire after weeks of poor performance.

Commuter Susan Moffatt tweeted: "Why do @ScotRail only have 1 person selling tickets at Glasgow Central as folk come to the train. Massive queues", while Kenny Brown added: "@ScotRail – stealing tax payers money".

Chris Timms said: "Damn @ScotRail you've managed to do it again. 4 carriages on a Sat Edin/Glas service Packed by Haymarket. Your capacity algorithm is wrong."

Graeme McIntyre Tweeted: "@ScotRail 2 carriage train Dunblane to Edinburgh on the busiest Saturday of the year, are you serious?", while Graham McCusker also directed his ire at the railway operator through the social media platform, saying: "@ScotRail Paying for an overpriced ticket for a train that is getting us to our destination half an hour late? Ridiculous."

Cancellations affected many other routes, including trains between Edinburgh, Dundee and Glasgow.

Anna Smart, who was travelling to Glasgow with her six-month-old son and her partner Kyle Conlin, branded ScotRail an "absolute joke" after her afternoon train was cancelled with an announcement that the driver could not be found.

She said: "We were on the train and then we were all told to get off and the train was cancelled because they driver could not be located. How does that even happen? There was no room on the train and it was getting to be standing room only when everyone had to get back onto the platform and wait again. It was a total mess.

"I asked where to go to get a replacement and we were all told to just go and find the next train, without being told which platform or anything."

She added that the family was forced to endure an uncomfortable wait while trying to secure a berth on the next train home.

She said: "It was absolutely freezing but it was just treated as business as usual. You would not be treated like this by any other type of transport."

A spokeswoman for ScotRail said: "This is an exceptionally busy weekend, with hundreds of thousands of people travelling – many more than normal. To prepare for this we have laid on more staff and are running extra and strengthened services right across Scotland. In doing so, we have managed to keep our punctuality rate around the 90 per cent mark throughout the day.

"We are doing everything we can to keep people moving and, as always, we are really grateful for the patience that people are showing."