RAILWAY workers are preparing to ballot for the first national rail strike in a generation after accusing the Tories of playing “fast and loose” with workers’ pension schemes.

The RMT have begun strike ballot preparations after it said the government failed to offer “cast-iron assurances” to protect current pension arrangements.

The union is demanding that Transport Secretary Chris Grayling and all train company operators do not impose reductions in future pension benefits or significantly increase member contributions.

It would be the first national strike since British Rail was privatised in April 1994.

RMT general secretary Mick Cash said: “If it takes the first national rail strike in a generation to defend our members’ pensions then so be it.

“We will not tolerate a position where Chris Grayling and the train companies are playing fast and loose with rail pension rights and RMT members will not be left to pay the price for the collapsing chaos of the rail franchising system.

“We have made it crystal clear that this union will resist any attack on our members’ future pension rights either as a result of government policy or greedy employers wanting to prop up their profits within the failed private franchise model.

“Any such attack will be met with a campaign of coordinated industrial action across the rail industry to defend pensions and, in the absence of a satisfactory response from the government and train operators, that is where we are now heading.”