A RAIL STRIKE that would have caused travel chaos for more than two million passengers was called off last night after both sides backed away from a confrontation.

The Rail Maritime and Transport union cancelled the 24-hour walkout, due to start at 6.30pm next Tuesday, after Network Rail backtracked on plans to close its final-salary pension scheme.

The union had also been facing the prospect of its ballot being declared invalid by the High Court today because it had listed more than 100 members at signal boxes that had either closed or burnt down.

A Tube strike is still due to start on Tuesday evening but London Underground (LU) said that it hoped to arrange further talks with the RMT.

The breakthrough in the rail dispute came after John Armitt, Network Rail’s chief executive, telephoned Bob Crow, the RMT leader, to invite him to a meeting. At the meeting, Mr Armitt offered to reopen the final-salary pension scheme to new employees after they had completed five years’ service, including any time that they had spent with a sub-contractor before transferring to Network Rail.

Mr Crow agreed to suspend the strike to allow workers a fresh ballot with a recommendation to accept the deal.

He paid tribute to Mr Armitt for taking personal control of the negotiations and hoped this would be the start of several changes of attitude by companies after a flood of final-salary pension scheme closures over the past year. “We are very happy. We had been told we were living in a dream world and that we had no chance of getting this scheme reopened,” Mr Crow said. “Someone told us that there was more chance of Hell freezing over but, thanks to our members being prepared to take industrial action and shut down the railways, we have been able to get this scheme reopened.

“Mr Armitt has acted very honourably and dealt directly with us.”

He said a 24-hour strike on London Underground would go ahead as planned from 6.30pm next Tuesday. He urged LU to hold further talks with the union involving senior officials to try to head off the strike, which will cause travel misery in the capital.

“They want to get their chief executives out of the boardroom or the golf club, wherever they spend their time, and get around the negotiating table with us,” he said.

Network Rail was unable to say how much the concession on pensions would cost the company, which is largely funded by the taxpayer.

It said: “An agreement has been reached which is excellent news for passengers, excellent news for Network Rail and excellent news for the country.”

It could not speculate how many people would want to transfer from a defined contribution scheme to a final- salary scheme in which they have to pay higher contributions.

Brendan Barber, the TUC General-Secretary, said: “This is a good deal that shows that final-salary pension schemes can be saved.”

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