TRACK workers gearing up for strike action over flatlining pay slammed rail bosses yesterday for doubling their own pay packets.

About 16,000 members of rail union RMT are being balloted across track and station operator Network Rail.

Public control of Network Rail was formalised in the autumn but some of the company’s executives have seen their salaries swell by as much as 47 per cent this year.

And the rail franchisees soaking up swathes of taxpayers’ cash have it even better, with Go-Ahead group chief David Brown seeing his pay rise to £1,960,000, a 108 per cent rise.

FirstGroup’s Tim O’Toole’s package has risen to £1,986,000, an 86 per cent increase.

Ninety per cent of Network Rail staff voted to reject the corporation’s pay offer. A low-ranking trackman earns just £20,242 while a mid-grade signaller earns £34,127.

Staff have been offered one-off lump sums and been told there will be a “no compulsory redundancies” policy in the group, but the union is concerned that Network Rail has cannily applied this to only the first two years of a four-year deal.

RMT general secretary Mick Cash said Network Rail’s proposals would lead to a “demoralised, burnt-out workforce living in fear.”

“There can be no argument that Network Rail cannot afford a fair and decent pay deal for its staff when the company is generating profits of £1 billion a year,” he said.

“The top executives are jetting around in business class and drawing down high-rolling salaries that are light years away from the dangerous and dirty world of work that is the daily reality for our members.”

The strike ballot, which closes on May 12, opened yesterday as the chaos of Britain’s privatised railways came to the fore once again with hundreds of passengers stranded at Clapham Junction in south London, Britain’s busiest rail station.