The RMT union has called on the Scottish Government to set out an immediate timetable for Abellio to be stripped of its ScotRail franchise.
The transport workers' union claims performance by the operator has slumped and not enough money is being invested in staffing, services and safety.
The demand comes on the eve of a day of protests organised by the union in support of a campaign for "Safer Scottish Railways".
ScotRail said the comments do not stand up to scrutiny and added that it is investing hundreds of millions of pounds on new trains and systems.
Almost 20,000 people have signed a petition calling on Transport Minister Humza Yousaf to ''make ScotRail bosses improve Scotland's trains or strip them of their contract''.
ScotRail was recently fined £483,000 for failing to meet required standards for trains and stations.
First Minister Nicola Sturgeon last week indicated that stripping ScotRail of its contract to run the railways is on the table if performance fails to improve.
RMT general secretary Mick Cash said: "RMT is campaigning to make Scotland's trains safer, more secure and accessible.
"This can only be done with a publicly-owned service where profit isn't the main motive of the operator."
He added: "RMT calls on the Scottish Government to set out a timetable for bringing ScotRail under public ownership, and with the current level of anger that's reinforced in the petition there can be no excuse for the dragging of heels.
"The union is available for talks with ministers to take the issues of safe staffing, investment and public ownership forwards."
A ScotRail spokesman said: "These comments bear no scrutiny whatsoever. Performance has dipped by around 1% - but is still tracking around the 90% mark - and we have a robust performance improvement plan to rectify that.
"At the same time, we are investing hundreds of millions of pounds on new trains, refurbishing our existing fleet and introducing queue-busting smart technology to keep people moving."
Dutch firm Abellio was awarded the franchise in 2015 for 10 years but ministers can strip the company of the contract after five years if punctuality falls below 84.3%.
A Scottish Government spokesman said: "Any notion excessive profits are siphoned off is quite simply a fallacy.
"In fact, this Government has ensured profits are capped, that this cap is tighter than any previous franchise and that at least 50% of revenue above that cap is reinvested into our railways.
"A manifesto commitment was made to facilitate a public sector bid for our railways and ministers remain firmly committed to this.
"Currently, 89 trains out of 100 arrive within five minutes of the timetable - our contract demands 91.
"That is why we asked ScotRail to implement the improvement plan which looks at addressing service-quality issues and tackling congestion, while minimising 'skip stopping', until new train fleets arrive.
"We fully expect ScotRail to hit their anticipated targets to lift performance.
"This contract will deliver very real improvements across the term - new and better trains, improvements at stations, initiatives on fares and a revolution in the end-to-end journey experience."
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