BORIS Johnson has told the country to prepare for more train strikes, as the Prime Minister blasted "union barons" for bringing the country's railways to a halt.  

Around 40,000 RMT members at Network Rail and 13 train operators downed tools this morning in the first of three days of industrial action.

It is the biggest walk out in three decades. 

The unions have made clear that unless there is movement from the companies on pay, conditions and jobs, there could be more strikes in the months to come. 

Addressing his cabinet this morning, the Prime Minister urged commuters to “stay the course”.

Mr Johnson said there had been a “colossal” investment in rail infrastructure, but there needed to be further reform and modernisation. 

“It cannot be right that some ticket offices… are selling roughly one ticket per hour,” he said.

“We need to get those staff out from behind plate glass, onto the platforms, interacting with passengers.

“And we need the union barons to sit down with Network Rail and the train companies and get on with it.

“And we need, I’m afraid, everybody, and I say this to the country as a whole, we need to get ready to stay the course.

“To stay the course, because these reforms, these improvements in the way we run our railways are in the interests of the travelling public, they will help to cut costs for farepayers up and down the country.

“But they’re also in the interests of the railways, of railway workers and their families.

“Because otherwise, if we don’t do this, these great, great companies, this great industry, will face further financial pressure, it will go bust and the result will be they have to hike up the cost of tickets still further so that people don’t use the railways at all or use them much less than they used to.

“And that will, I think, be a disaster for this country and for our economy.”

The Prime Minister said the strike was causing "significant disruption and inconvenience" and making it "more difficult for people to get to work, risking people's appointments, making it more difficult for kids to sit exams - all sorts of unnecessary aggravations".

In a bid to lessen the impact of any future strikes, the UK government plans on repealing laws banning businesses from using temporary workers to replace staff taking industrial action. 

The legislation will be tabled in the Common this week and would take effect in mid-July. 

The ban on agency workers has been in place since 1973, brought in by Edward Heath’s Tory government. 

RMT general secretary Mick Lynch said the plan was "nonsense". 

He told the PA news agency: “Well, I don’t know how bringing in untrained, non-safety critical, inexperienced workers into a dangerous environment like the railway with high-speed trains, there are high voltage distribution systems, are there are rules and regulations that have the power of statute, how that will help anyone, whether they are a passenger or a worker or manager or whatever.

“I don’t see how the use, the deployment, of students or people who have got no work experience that are working for an agency will help anyone to resolve this situation so as usual he’s just spouting nonsense given to him from some policy unit which doesn’t help to resolve the situations which are in front of us.”