THE crisis on the railways deepened last night as union leaders threatened to resist thousands of job cuts with crippling nationwide strikes.

Unions reacted angrily after Network Rail, which has taken over from Railtrack, unveiled a "recovery plan" that will see more than 2,000 job losses over the next three years to cut costs.

They pledged to resist further cuts and held out the prospect of Britain's first national rail strike for more than a decade.

Passenger groups were stunned by Network Rail's admission that one in ten services will still be running late by the end of the decade.

A spokeswoman for Network Rail in the North-East said she believed any cuts in the region would not focus on "front-line staff". She said: "The majority of staff in the North-East are people such as signallers and track repairmen and we don't believe these will be greatly affected."

Network Rail said it planned to cut costs by £13bn over the next decade but added that it still needed to spend £54bn to run the railways until 2012-13.

The not-for-profit company, which last week announced £1.8m pay-outs for its top directors, said it was facing up to "tough choices", but the Conservatives dubbed the £54bn expenditure "astonishing".

Bob Crow, general secretary of the RMT union, described yesterday's announcement as a "disgrace".

He said his union would be meeting Network Rail as a matter of urgency to discuss its business plan.

Mr Crow said: "Any compulsory redundancies will be resisted, with industrial action if necessary. The budget cuts announced today are scandalous.

"We are all for efficiency but cutting billions of pounds from the renewals and maintenance budgets is not the way to do it."

Network Rail's deputy chief executive, Iain Coucher, said: "We are facing up to the tough choices that the rail industry needs to make.

"Inevitably, our plans anticipate reductions in headcount and we expect these to total about 2,000 people over the next three years.

"In addition, we are not satisfied with the projected rate of improvements in punctuality."

Mr Coucher added: "Our key objective remains unchanged - to deliver safe, reliable and efficient rail infrastructure."

Shadow Transport Secretary Tim Collins said: "Promises about efficiency won't wash when they ask for almost £60bn at the same time."

Network Rail hopes that 81.7 per cent of trains will run on time in 2003-04, with this figure rising to 87.3 per cent by 2006-07 and above the 90 per cent mark by 2009-10.

* The track repair firm at the centre of the Potters Bar crash last night denied that it had failed to carry out vital work on the East Coast Mainline.

Jarvis was accused by Bob Crow of ignoring regular checks on a set of points five miles south of York.

But John Smiles, of Jarvis, said: "All safety critical maintenance work has been carried out . . . to the required timescales."