Up to 12,000 members of the Rail Maritime and Transport Union walked out for 30 hours until 6pm tonight in a row over jobs and conditions.

The union said the action was 'solidly supported' and said some maintenance work had been cancelled.

General secretary Bob Crow urged NR to return to negotiations in a bid to resolve a row over harmonisation of terms and conditions.

NR said 94% of trains arrived on time on Saturday and 95% were on time on Sunday despite the industrial action.

A spokesman said: "Our contingency plans have worked extremely well and the strike has had little or no impact with trains running smoothly all weekend.

"We now call upon the RMT to see sense and come back to the negotiating table so we can continue our work to agree a standard set of conditions for all our maintenance people."