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.