Mick Whelan, the general secretary of the Aslef union, said talks with train operators on pay and conditions will resume on Tuesday next week and he is "hopeful" of progress being made. 

He told ITV's Good Morning Britain programme: "We are back in talks on Tuesday and we always go in hopeful. Unfortunately some of the actions by the employers and the Government in recent weeks have set the talks back. 

"But we go back there with open eyes, hoping to found a resolution. We don’t want to be here, my people do not want to be on picket lines, they do not want people losing money, they want to be doing their day job. 

"But at some point… someone has got to compromise with us."

Striking train drivers are the victims of "demonisation", a union boss has claimed, as the nation faces another day of disruptive walkouts on the railways. 

It was suggested to Mick Whelan, the Aslef general secretary, this morning that the striking train drivers could lose the support and sympathy of people who earn significantly less than they do as strikes continue to cause chaos. Average train driver salaries are currently about £60,000. 

Mr Whelan told ITV's Good Morning Britain programme: "I worry first and foremost about the people I represent and the idea of the politics of envy and the demonisation of train drivers and other skilled workers has been going on now for over a year. 

"It isn’t about what we earn, it is about what other people don’t earn. I want every nurse in the country, everybody in the fire brigade, everybody in the public sector, every teacher to have what we have. 

"But I have never entered into a world of industrial resolution or talks whereby if we don’t have it they give it to somebody else. 

"If we are in a race to the bottom, it was only three prime ministers ago, it wasn’t that long ago, that they were talking about skilled jobs and higher wages. Those industrial higher skilled jobs and vocational jobs should get the salaries that [people] are attracted to."