CRITICS have branded news ScotRail has received record fines of £3 million “simply unacceptable”.

The firm clocked up a raft of financial penalties in the first nine months of this financial year for failing to meet required standards.

The total is now double the penalties imposed on the company for the whole of the previous year – with key targets missed in areas such as train and station toilets, ticket machines, train seats and on-train information.

Scottish Labour MSP Colin Smyth condemned the reports as “shocking”, but insisted they came as no surprise.

He said: "ScotRail has left passengers having to pay a small fortune for delayed and overcrowded trains – and even when trains are not cancelled, they can't be guaranteed to stop at the stations they are supposed to.

"This is simply unacceptable, yet the SNP Government buries its head in the sand and pretends everything is fine.

"Scottish Labour would take Scotland's railways back into public ownership and build a rail service that works for the many, not the few."

The latest three-monthly performance figures show that fines against Abellio, which runs the franchise, have topped the £1m record for the first time in recent years.

It comes after ScotRail apologised after being forced to cut the number of carriages on some Glasgow to Edinburgh trains by half. It has also come under fire over trains missing stops in a bid to catch up on schedules.

Scottish Liberal Democrat transport spokesman Mike Rumbles MSP said passengers were too often enduring “trains that are late, standing room only, have been stripped of carriages, lacking heating or skipping stops”.

He added: "Last year the Scottish Government used the money from fines for a sweetener for pass holders, when it was supposed to be used to improve infrastructure and services.

"This year they should know that passengers don’t want token gestures, they want to get home on time and for their train to have the basics they expect."