Crucial talks aimed at averting Easter strikes by thousands of railway workers in a row over jobs are to be held.
Officials from the Rail Maritime and Transport union will meet bosses from Network Rail (NR) at the conciliation service Acas following a series of ballot results in favour of industrial action.
The union, and the Transport Salaried Staffs Association, are campaigning against plans to cut 1,500 maintenance jobs as NR looks to cut costs and change working practices.
Maintenance workers and signal workers belonging to the RMT have both backed a campaign of industrial action, which could be held over Easter unless the row is resolved.
Robin Gisby, NR's director of operations and customer services, said: "We strongly believe that a negotiated settlement between our trades unions about the ongoing maintenance dispute over modernisation and signallers over rosters is possible.
"We look forward to sitting down with them today to start talks that can help end the threat of unnecessary strikes that would cause misery to millions of passengers and damage a recovering British economy."
NR said the signallers' main issue was around rosters as the company pressed to move around 50 staff to a new four day a week roster.
Strikes by signal workers would cripple the rail network immediately, while NR believes it would take several days of action by maintenance workers to have an impact on train services.
