Train strikes: Worst rail disruption of the year grinds network to a halt

Both union leaders also pointed to relatively high levels of public support for the industrial action, with many of those inconvenienced joining the picket lines themselves.

“When we polled the same people normally at the time of the strike, it’s 95 per cent against us. Current approval ratings are running between 49 per cent to 64 per cent,” Mr Whelan told Times Radio.

However, Tim Shoveller, a managing director at Network Rail, described the strikes as a “huge own goal” that would result in “less money to spend improving the railway”.

Speaking to Times Radio Breakfast, he said: “To target leisure travellers, as appears to be happening today and again next Saturday, is really frustrating. And it’s just a huge own goal.

“The profit is purely an accounting measure. And that all goes back into the railway, every single penny goes back into the railway.

“In fact, a tragedy of the strikes now is that because of the costs of the strike, we’ll actually have less money to spend improving the railway because of the compensation and costs that we’ll have from the strike days.”