TRAINS to and from York could grind to a halt due to a staff strike on the East Coast mainline, it was warned today.

More than 400 signallers and signalling supervisors are being balloted over action, due to a dispute with Network Rail over staff changes.

If workers vote for a strike, they say no trains will run between Newcastle and London, meaning potential chaos for thousands of York passengers. Any strike would start on the weekend before Easter.

The RMT union says Network Rail has been breaching a long-standing "last in, first out" agreement when making staff redundant or moving them between jobs. But Network Rail says the union is "grandstanding" over local disputes.

A PTR&R (promotion, transfer, redundancy and resettlement) agreement gives protection to longer-serving and more senior staff in times of upheaval, but the RMT says Network Rail has been breaching it.

A strike is being held in Lincoln today, and hundreds more staff are now being balloted on wider industrial action, after it emerged that at least one member of staff in York was also apparently mistreated.

RMT general secretary Bob Crow said: "We made it clear to Network Rail that if they did not settle this matter within a week, the Lincoln strike would go ahead and we would ballot every signaller between Doncaster and King's Cross.

"Now we have a signalling manager in York being told that the PTR&R doesn't apply to him either and that he is also being dealt with under a procedure that has never been agreed with the union.

"This is shaping up to be a concerted attack on the PTR&R agreement, which is the corner-stone of our members' conditions and there is no way we can accept it being torn up.

"Network Rail has so far refused to settle this around the table and that leaves us with no alternative but to put in place ballots of our members in the Great Northern and North East areas, with recommendations that our members vote for action."

A Network Rail spokesman said 25 managers had been in training since Tuesday to work as signallers, to cope with today's strike. Another Lincoln strike is scheduled for next week, but he would not speculate on what may happen if there were a larger strike.

On the dispute in York, he said: "We are meeting with the individual at the centre of this issue on Tuesday and hope to reach a speedy resolution."

He said: "These are local disputes that are being handled and settled at a local level. The RMT is grandstanding by threatening escalation and this is a typical example of its 1960s approach to modern industrial relations."