RENEWED calls have been made to take ScotRail back into public ownership after weeks of delays and cancellations over the Christmas period.

Yesterday, the Transport Salaried Staffs’ Association, TSSA union, marked Scottish commuters’ first Monday back at work by campaigning at Glasgow Central station.

Liz Warren Corney, from the union, said: “We’re here to ask passengers to sign our petition to strip Abellio of their ScotRail franchise after months and months of poor service. The rail franchise and privatisation system is not working for passengers on ScotRail.

“The best solution for ScotRail and Scottish passengers is for it to be run in the public sector as a publicly-owned railway. We did a report last year that showed passengers would see a six per cent cut to ticket prices as the result of the profits from reinvesting into the railway.”

Those getting trains from Glasgow Central agreed, with many feeling that passengers deserve better.

Andy Allan, 70, said: “It’s scandalous. I think it should be re-nationalised.

“If you’re not doing a good job, why should you put the prices up? I think the public are getting a raw deal.”

Siobhan Hutcheson, 46 said: “The fare increases aren’t justified, the standard isn’t good enough for the cost.

“I think they should be nationalised again. It’s the board members who get all the profits so it should be brought back to the people.”

Last year a poll found that 64 per cent of voters would support publicly run railways like in other European countries.

John Morrison, 61, said: “The rail increases aren’t justified not for what they’re offering. If they’ve upgraded the train system in some way to make it better, then maybe.

“The likes of Italy or France are far superior than what we’ve got. They’re nationalised so maybe we need to do something like that.”

Last week ScotRail was forced to apologise to customers after what they described as “unacceptable service”.

Richard Leonard, leader of Scottish Labour, said: “The privatisation experiment over the last 20 years has plainly failed and it’s letting down passengers.

“The travelling public understand that public ownership of the railways is the best solution, it’s about time that politicians in other parties caught up to where the public mood is.”