TRAIN passengers have been warned not to travel on Monday and Tuesday after rail staff agreed to go on strike.

No trains will run on Tuesday while there will be an “extremely limited” service on Bank Holiday Monday.

The disruption is expected to continue into Wednesday morning, if the strike action goes ahead as expected.

Network Rail staff have voted in favour of the 24-hour walk-out, starting on 5pm on Monday. Meanwhile passengers face additional misery after drivers yesterday agreed to go on strike in a separate row.

Talks between Network Rail and the trade unions aimed at resolving the dispute resumed yesterday for a third day.

Network Rail said its negotiating team would work into the weekend to reach a deal and prevent strike action.

Train operators are drawing up contingency plans if talks cannot be resolved.

More details are expected to be available this afternoon.

Mark Carne, Network Rail chief executive, said: “I sincerely hope we can reach a settlement and my team will be available all week, and into the weekend if necessary, to find a deal to prevent strike action.

“We can't bank on the unions calling off the strike, so we are now concluding our contingency plans so passengers can make decisions about their journeys.”

The RMT and TSSA unions are the unions involved in the crunch talks.

RMT general Secretary Mick Cash said staff had suffered “a wholly unwarranted attack on safety-critical jobs, pay and working conditions” that would undermine passenger safety.

TSSA general secretary Manuel Cortes added: "Our members are clearly very angry over the four year pay offer and particularly the one off £500 payment for this year which would mean them falling behind the cost of living.”

Passenger groups said travellers were being “held to ransom”.

Shelley Atlas, chairman of Brighton Line Commuters, said: “It’s difficult to say how this can be resolved but we hope they see sense and decide not to go ahead.

“I know that people are very annoyed about this. It will have a big impact on the Bank Holiday when people want to travel and now it could affect people trying to get back to work on Tuesday.

“Many are not in a position to take an extra day’s holiday just because the trains will not run. It will be a massive inconvenience.”

In a complication to the talks, Network Rail has issued a legal challenge to TSSA citing "numerous defects" in its strike ballot.

And in a separate dispute, train union ASLEF announced its drivers had voted overwhelmingly in favour of action.

Southern Rail and Gatwick Express drivers were balloted in response to Southern’s “failure to provide an improved pay offer” to its members.

The Argus understands the current offer on the table from Southern is a 2.65% pay increase. Drivers are upset that their colleagues working for Southeastern have “been awarded a larger figure of 4.5%".

ASLEF announced yesterday more than 90% of its drivers voted in favour of strike action and is due to meet Southern bosses.

A date for action has not yet been announced.

Factfile

RAIL passengers have bombarded train companies with nearly half a million negative tweets in the last 12 months.

Analysing key words in tweets such as "fault", "profit", "angry" and "frustrated", the CommuteLondon organisation found there had been 473,661 tweets from travellers using negative language in the 12 months ending in March.

The survey covered the 14 train companies operating services to London, and the company with the most negative tweets was Abellio Greater Anglia, with 72,861.

Next was First Great Western with 64,302, followed by Southern Rail with 61,715.

The company which generated the least number of negative tweets was Chiltern, with 5,676.

Signalling problem hotspots on the Brighton Mainline between Jan 2015 and May 2015, excluding April.

Purley 6, Three Bridges 5, Clapham Junction 4, Earlswood (Surrey) 4, East Croydon 4, Haywards Heath 4, Norwood Junction 3, Tulse Hill 3, Balham 3, Gatwick Airport 3, London Victoria 3, London Bridge 3, Preston Park 2, Crystal Palace 1, New Cross Gate 1, Peckham Rye 1, Balcombe 1, Penge West 1

MORNING CHAOS

COMMUTERS and MPs heaped criticism on the train network after a broken rail caused a host of cancellations and delays.

Morning rush-hour passengers faced misery as a number of trains on the Brighton to London mainline were scrapped because of the broken rail at Haywards Heath.

Among the axed services was the 7.29am Brighton to London Victoria – the notorious service which failed to arrive on time once last year.

Network Rail, which is responsible for the UK’s rail infrastructure, apologised for the delays and said trains were travelling through Haywards Heath at just 20mph.

Since the start of this year Network Rail has dealt with at least 52 signalling problems, and 104 between January 2014 and March this year.

London Bridge was the source of the most failures with 20, while Bricklayers Arms Junction, Peckham Rye and Norwood Junction also proved problematic with ten, nine and eight respectively.

Network Rail said signal failures included a number of different issues with different sets of equipment.

A spokesman said: “What is more important from a passenger perspective is not the number of failures themselves, but the impact that they have.

“The Brighton Main Line and the routes into Victoria and London Bridge are very busy and also include the most congested stretch of railway in the country, near Croydon.

“As a result, small problems can have major impacts and we are focussing our attentions on improving the reliability of our assets at crucial locations, such as busy junctions and stations.”

Caroline Lucas, Green MP for Brighton Pavilion, was one of hundreds of passengers caught up in the chaos.

She told The Argus yesterday: “I’ve had a long talk with Network Rail, who informed me about the Haywards Heath incident.

“My point to them was that it is not an isolated incident. This kind of thing is happening more and more frequently. They’ve not had a good year so far.

“I have approached the other MPs in Sussex to see if we can sort out a joint-approach to finding a solution because at the moment the rail network is fit for purpose.

“Passengers are paying eye-watering fares while not being given the service they’ve been promised.”

Maria Caulfield, the new Tory MP for Lewes, announced she would be pressing the case for a second Brighton to London mainline with rail minister Claire Perry.

Eastbourne MP Caroline Ansell tweeted “Oh the irony” after being made late to a meeting with the rail minister thanks to a delayed Southern service.