A rail union has requested 38 days off per year and a 35-hour week for its members.

The Transport Salaried Staffs’ Association (TSSA) was one of three trade unions that met Department for Transport (DfT) officials on Tuesday for talks about pay rises after ministers had signed off on a 14 per cent increase for train drivers last week.

A letter sent to TSSA members last week said the union, which represents train service controllers, ticket officers and gate line personnel, had asked Great Western Railway (GWR) to increase their holiday entitlement to 38 days per year including bank holidays.

“I have ensured that the team that is likely to meet with DfT are briefed and aware of your aspirations in advance of any such meeting between TSSA and the DfT,” said the letter, seen by The Telegraph.

The TSSA said that the GWR holiday demand was not put forward as part of Tuesday’s pay negotiations, describing them as “productive”.

“We listened to what the DfT had to say and they have made us an offer,” a spokesman said.

Most workers who work a five-day week receive at least 28 days’ paid annual leave a year, according to the Government. In England and Wales this includes eight statutory public holidays.

Tuesday’s meetings saw TSSA negotiators, together with representatives of the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers (RMT) and Unite unions, meet Department for Transport officials to negotiate pay increases for their members.

Last month, Sir Keir Starmer’s Government gave a 22 per cent pay rise to junior doctors, spread across two years, to end their long-running industrial action.

Rachel Reeves, the Chancellor, has also signed off on an above-inflation salary increase of 5.5 per cent for millions of public-sector staff, at a cost of nearly £10 billion.

Louise Haigh, the Transport Secretary, last week approved a 14.25 per cent increase for the country’s 19,000 train drivers. It is to be backdated to cover the last three years.

After rail privatisation was effectively ended during the Covid pandemic, the Government now holds the industry’s purse strings and signs off on all changes to staff pay.

Announcing the train drivers’ pay deal last week, Ms Haigh said: “When I took this job, I said I wanted to move fast and fix things – starting by bringing an end to rail strikes.”

Aslef, the drivers’ union, announced a three-month campaign of weekend walkouts targeting LNER, the train company, within 48 hours of Ms Haigh’s announcement.

The union said the LNER strikes were not linked to the pay increase awarded to drivers, but had been called over the state of industrial relations at the state-owned business.

Rail firms’ £850m drop in ticket sales

The Department for Transport said Aslef’s previous two-year campaign of strikes by train drivers demanding pay rises had resulted in an £850 million drop in ticket sales for rail companies.

This is just over 10 per cent of the £8.6 billion the rail industry earned from passengers during the financial year 2022-23.

A DfT spokesman said on Tuesday: “Fixing our railways is at the heart of our plan to kick-start economic growth and ending the adversarial approach to industrial relations is the first step to delivering that.

“Today, officials resumed talks and held constructive discussions with RMT, Unite and TSSA to reset the relationship with unions for the benefit of passengers and the taxpayer. Further conversations will be held in the coming weeks.”

GWR declined to comment on the TSSA demand. The RMT did not respond to a request for comment.