Labour is to offer train drivers payments of £600 to work overtime in a deal signed off by the new Transport Secretary.
Heidi Alexander last week approved plans for Aslef, the train drivers’ union, to offer the extra payments to hundreds of their members for working Saturday and Sunday shifts.
Ms Alexander has been in post for just over a fortnight after Louise Haigh, her predecessor, quit following her admission that she pleaded guilty to misleading the police a decade ago.
Train drivers on services running from London Euston to Birmingham and Liverpool are in line for £580 to work overtime shifts between Mondays and Fridays.
This will rise to £600 for overtime weekend shifts, The Sunday Times first reported, in what will be seen as a victory for Mick Whelan, the general secretary of Aslef.
It is an increase of up to 75 per cent in overtime pay, which was previously £332 in the week, £359 on Saturdays and £431 on Sundays.
A Department for Transport spokesman said: “We are delivering the biggest overhaul to our railways in a generation, creating a publicly owned, passenger-focused Great British Railways.
“As part of these plans, we’re determined to move towards a seven-day working week and end the overreliance on rest day working, giving passengers the certainty and reliability they deserve.”
Rail strikes since 2022 are estimated to have cost taxpayers around £850 million. In August, Ms Haigh handed train drivers £135 million in pay rises in an attempt to end walkouts for good.
But train managers at the RMT rail union had planned to strike over the Christmas period until last week, when they received an improved offer from Avanti West Coast.
Cancellations on Britain’s railways have hit a record high despite the bumper pay deals, with more than one in 25 trains in summer being withdrawn before they ran.
Some 78,000 services have been fully or partially cancelled this year, the highest figure logged by the Office for Rail and Road since records began in 2014.
Northern Rail, which is owned by the state, was the worst offender having cancelled 6.5 per cent of all its services.
South Western Railway is to become the first rail company taken into public ownership by this Government as part of Sir Keir Starmer and Ms Alexander’s plans to reverse privatisation.
The nationalised network will ultimately be controlled by Great British Railways (GBR), which is not expected to be fully operational until the end of 2026.
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