By MARTIN WILLIAMS

RAIL passengers misery has been laid bare after ScotRail has received record fines for failing to meet required standards for the running of the nation’s trains and stations.

The firm has clocked up £3million in financial penalties over the first nine months of this financial year for its failings, having posted a £3.5m after-tax loss for 2016.

That is double the financial penalties imposed on them for the whole of the previous year.

The ScotRail report card shows Abellio which runs the franchise failed to reach the required standards in service to the public in 26 benchmarking areas out of 34.

It comes as Abellio, an offshoot of Dutch national railways, came under fresh criticism after failing to meet punctuality targets for the fifth month in a row with 90.1 per cent of trains arriving on time in the moving annual average.

The report card covering the last three months of last year showed the Dutch operator failed to hit key targets in areas including train and station toilets, litter and cleanliness, ticket machines, train seats and on-train information.

The development comes as union chiefs aim for talks with ScotRail management after threatening strike action over the axing of a health and safety department which they say will put passengers and staff at risk.

Jackie Baillie MSP, a former interim Scottish Labour Party leader has said she aims to hold a meeting with ScotRail managing director Alex Hynes to raise concerns of station-skipping of local rail services and the impact it has on passengers.  It comes after it emerged that the number of ScotRail trains skipping stops has increased to as many as 20 a day.

Last week ScotRail made an apology after being forced to cut the number of carriages on some Glasgow to Edinburgh trains by half – leading to fears of passenger overcrowding.

The latest three-monthly performance figures show that fines against Abellio have topped £1m record (£1.228m) for the first time in recent years.

In its full final year of running the previous ScotRail franchise, First was fined £576,000 (2014/15) under the performance regime.

But official data reveals that Abellio’s penalties are currently more than five times that with three months still to three months of the financial year to go.

Abellio has now racked up nearly £5.75m in penalties since it took over from First.  Transport Minister Humza Yousaf is known to be preparing a public-sector bid to take over Scotland’s railways, with a possible switch in 2022.

A ScotRail spokesman said:  “We’ve signed up to the toughest service quality regime in the UK – and it is right that we have. It means that standards are driven ever higher and customers get a better service.

“These are not fines. It is a reinvestment fund. Every penny raised through Squire gets put back into Scotland’s railway.”