BRITAIN’S flailing privatised railway is facing its first national strike in over 20 years after staff at infrastructure giant Network Rail voted overwhelmingly for industrial action over pay and redundancy fears.

A whopping 80 per cent of RMT union members, on a 60 per cent turnout, voted to down tools in rejection of Network Rail’s pay offer.

The current offer tabled by Network Rail, which since the autumn has effectively been in public ownership, includes a miserly non-consolidated £500 lump sum this year, followed by inflation-level only pay rises for the next three years.

The union said the lump sum was “wholly inadequate and fails to recognise the massive pressures staff are working under to keep services running at a time when the company is generating profits of £1 billion.”

And workers have raised concerns that the firm’s commitment to avoid compulsory redundancies was only for the first two years of the four-year deal.

RMT general secretary Mick Cash said: “Our members have today decisively rejected the pay package offered by Network Rail.

“This is a massive mandate for action and shows the anger of safety-critical staff across the rail network at attacks on their standards of living and their job security.”

The turnout in the RMT ballot was unusually high — and would even overcome the Tory government’s proposals to invalidate strikes unless they have 40 per cent backing from eligible union members.

Workers voted by a bigger margin — 92 per cent — for other forms of industrial action, raising the threat of chaos on the railways.

The RMT result will now be considered by the union’s executive.

Transport Salaried Staffs Association is also balloting its members, with the result due over the next week.

A Network Rail strike by both unions, which include signallers, maintenance workers and admin staff, would cripple train services.

RMT has around 16,000 members at NR, working across the company’s operations and maintenance division.

Talks were held at the conciliation service Acas but they failed to break the deadlock.

Transport Secretary Patrick McLoughlin said: “I condemn any industrial action that disrupts the travelling public.

“I want to see Network Rail and the unions back round the negotiating table”