TRAIN drivers showed “massive support” for a strike that threw central London into turmoil yesterday.

Aslef members on the Central and Waterloo and City lines walked out in protest against “management’s refusal to treat drivers with respect.”

The union’s district organiser Finn Brennan said: “Not a single Aslef driver went to work on the Central line.”

No services at all ran on the Waterloo and City line, while Central line services through the heart of the capital were out of action.

London Underground operations director Nigel Holness called the strike “unnecessary” — but Mr Brennan said Aslef had “worked hard to resolve this dispute.”

The union had been “working up to the last minute to try to persuade management to agree to abide by agreements they have made. 

“We are bitterly disappointed it has come to this.”

Train drivers have baulked at what they say is a long-running pattern of vindictive management behaviour — which has seen “vulnerable people leave sickness review meetings in tears and drivers with years and years of good and long service threatened with disciplinary action for a delay of 33 seconds in leaving a terminus.”

London Underground is also cutting refresher training for drivers on the Central line by 20 per cent — despite recommendations from the Rail Accident Investigation Branch, which concluded staff needed additional training after the “uncontrolled evacuation” of a train at Holland Park last August.

Further strike action is planned for next month if the dispute is not resolved.