The RMT conductors are in dispute over the imposition of centralised rostering and two-tier Sunday payments over Christmas and New Year.

The first strike, on Christmas Eve, went ahead after the company turned down flat an offer to call off the stoppages if Central withdrew its imposed rostering system and agreed to talks around a seven-point peace plan.

"Christmas Eve's strike was 100 per cent solid after our members voted by more than six to one for action," RMT general secretary Bob Crow said today.

"Central Trains have shown absolutely no interest in settling this dispute and they will now face solid strike action on New Year's Eve and Year's Day as well.

"The conductors involved in this dispute are safety-critical staff, and any trains run by Central Trains tomorrow and on New Year's Day will be operated with the use of inadequately trained managers or hastily brought in non-union staff, and that raises serious safety concerns.

"We held out an olive branch to Central Trains before Christmas but they chose simply to ignore it, which raises the fear that public money is once more being used to back a rail employer against its employees in an industrial dispute.

"If taxpayers' cash is being handed to Central Trains to indemnify them against losses and penalties arising from a dispute the company has engineered itself, that is a disgrace - but it would explain why they have walked away from talks without any pretence of trying to solve the problems.

"Central should understand that if they are to settle this dispute they must ultimately thrash out the issues involved around the talks table," Bob Crow said.

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Notes to editors: RMT conductors at Central voted by 231 to 37, a margin of more than six to one, to strike over the imposition of centralised rostering, and by 177 to 68 to take action over the company's attempt to give conductors a worse Christmas-working deal than other staff.