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Rail workers are to take four days of strike action immediately after Easter in a bitter row over jobs and working practices, threatening the worst disruption for 16 years.
Thousands of members of the Rail Maritime and Transport union (RMT) and the Transport Salaried Staffs Association (TSSA) employed by Network Rail will take action from Tuesday April 6, sparing Easter holiday travellers.
The RMT said its 5,000 members working as signallers will strike between 6am and 10am and between 6pm and 10pm on April 6,7,8 and 9.
The union's 12,000 NR maintenance workers, and TSSA's 800 members working as supervisors, will stage an all-out strike from 6am on April 6 to 11.59pm on April 9.
Rail workers will also ban overtime and rest-day working for the duration of the strike.
The strikes were announced despite talks this week at the conciliation service Acas to try to resolve the dispute over NR's plans to cut 1,500 maintenance jobs and change working practices to allow more work to be done in the evenings and weekends.
RMT general secretary Bob Crow said: "RMT negotiators have worked flat-out to try and reach an agreement that protects rail safety, job security and working agreements in the disputes involving signalling and maintenance staff on Britain's railways.
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"Despite long hours of talks, we have received nothing concrete from Network Rail that addresses the key issues. It remains the case that Network Rail, in a drive to slash 21% from their budget, want to axe 1,500 maintenance posts, lump maintenance functions on to over-worked signallers, rip up agreements and impose changes that will quite clearly undermine safety across our railways and make another Hatfield, Potters Bar or Grayrigg disaster an inevitability."
Robin Gisby, Network Rail's director of operations and customer services, said: "Passengers want more trains - starting earlier and running later - with fewer buses and more trains at weekends.
"To achieve this, Network Rail needs to change the way the railway works. We want proper discussions with the unions' leadership about implementing changes. Negotiations, not strikes, are the way forward.
