A BANK holiday rail strike which was set to cancel the "vast majority" of ScotRail and cross-Border train services has been called off.
The industrial action was poised to bring around 90 per cent of the rail network to a standstill on Monday and Tuesday next week.
But RMT and TSSA, the unions representing rail workers, have now urged their members to go to work as normal on both days after Network Rail tabled a revised pay offer.
Thousands of signallers, maintenance workers, station staff and white-collar transport industry employees were due stage a 24-hour walkout accompanied by an additional period of work-to-rule in the biggest disruption to the UK railways in more than 20 years.
Union bosses will meet with workplace representatives next week to discuss the new offer, before notifying their members.
They had previously rejected a four-year pay deal with a one-off bonus of £500 followed by three years of rises in line with inflation, amid fears that a guarantee of no compulsory redundancies only extended to the end of 2016.
The RMT said the dispute hinged on concerns over an attack on "safety critical jobs" as well as pay and conditions, which would jeopardise railway safety.
ScotRail confirmed that its services will run as normal on both days, with services on the East and West Coast Main Lines between Scotland and London also reinstated.
Anthony Smith, chief executive of the independent watchdog Transport Focus (formerly Passenger Focus), said: "Passengers will be relieved that the planned industrial action has been called off. "It is passengers who suffer most in the event of strikes.
"Many had already been inconvenienced and had to seek advice about their plans for the weekend."
However, with the threat of industrial action lifted some passengers using the West Coast Main Line will still face disruption from planned maintenance works over the Bank Holiday weekend.
Throughout Saturday, Sunday and Monday, improvement works near the Border and at Newton in South Lanarkshire mean that passengers will have to be transported between Carlisle, Glasgow and Edinburgh on replacement bus services.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article