OREANDA-NEWS. Phil Hufton managing director, Network Operations, said: “I’m disappointed that the RMT has taken the decision to reject the offer and ballot their members for industrial action.

“Our latest offer is fair given our financial pressures and provides long term employment opportunities by guaranteeing a further extension to the no compulsory redundancy agreement as well as providing a lump sum in 2015 

“Pay awards at Network Rail over the last four years have been well ahead of the rest of the country. Pay has increased eight times more than workers in the public sector - such as teachers and nurses – and double the pay for private sector workers. 

“We remain open to talks with our trades unions.”

Network Rail owns, manages and develops Britain’s railway – the 20,000 miles of track, 40,000 bridges and viaducts, and the thousands of signals, level crossings and stations (the largest of which we also run). In partnership with train operators we help people take more than 1.6bn journeys by rail every year - double the number of 1996 - and move hundreds of millions of tonnes of freight, saving almost 8m lorry journeys. We’re investing ?38bn in the railway by 2019 to deliver more frequent, more reliable, safer services and brighter and better stations.