RAIL union RMT warned yesterday of the looming jobs crisis facing Network Rail staff following revelations that the government was planning to sell off parts of the publicly owned company. Not-for-profit Network Rail employs 35,000 staff and is responsible for maintaining the country’s 20,000-mile rail network used by privatised train operators.

The company is also responsible for managing and maintaining Britain’s biggest railway stations, which it owns.

But rail industry sources have warned that government ministers are looking at plans to break up Network Rail, selling many of its operations to privateers, including the sale of 18 of Britain’s largest stations, among them Birmingham New Street and Glasgow Central.

The company also owns more than 2,500 other stations, which are run by private rail operators.The government has not revealed details of its plans.

RMT general secretary Mick Cash warned that this was the first stage of what the union “believes is a secret government plan to break up and sell off Network Rail with profiteering private companies handed lucrative public assets on a plate with a clear threat to jobs and the quality of service to the travelling public.

“RMT has warned that the election of a Conservative government would spark a new phase of rail privatisation, despite the disaster of the past two decades, as its big-money backers look for pay back.

“RMT will fight these plans as we gear up to defend Britain’s railways from a fresh dose of corporate greed which would see Network Rail smashed apart with the fragments flogged off to the same kind of spivs who are robbing the public blind on the private train operations.”

Network Rail also operates on-board Wi-Fi links for passengers and proposals being considered include siphoning the operation off to private-sector firms such as BT and Vodaphone.