The rail strikes are to go ahead after last-ditch talks failed to resolve a bitter dispute over pay, jobs and conditions.
Thousands of members of the Rail, Maritime and Transport union at Network Rail and 13 train operators will walk out on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday in the biggest outbreak of industrial action on the railways for a generation.
Services across the UK will start to be affected from Monday evening, with just one in five trains running on strike days, primarily on main lines and only for around 11 hours.
Talks were held into Monday afternoon but the sides remain deadlocked over a deal.
London Underground workers are also on strike on Tuesday.
Closures at Waterloo
Dominic Lipinski
The RMT said the train operators have now made an offer and there is no further offer from Network Rail following one which was rejected last Friday.
General secretary Mick Lynch said: “The RMT National Executive Committee has now found both sets of proposals to be unacceptable and it is now confirmed that the strike action scheduled this week will go ahead.
“It is clear that the Tory Government, after slashing £4bn of funding from National Rail and Transport for London, has now actively prevented a settlement to this dispute.
“The rail companies have now proposed pay rates that are massively under the relevant rates of inflation, coming on top of the pay freezes of the past few years.
“At the behest of the Government, companies are also seeking to implement thousands of job cuts and have failed to give any guarantee against compulsory redundancies.”
