Outrage as striking train drivers demand to be paid DOUBLE the salary of nurses

They tend to be drivers who work the most to maintain the network’s resilience during disruption. 

The figures emerged in a salary review paper by the Rail Delivery. The RMT union puts the average salary as slightly lower at £54,000.

Union bosses have been causing rail misery by calling strikes to demand a seven per cent pay rise.

RMT General Secretary Mike Lynch earns £84,000 a year, but the figure stands at £124,000 with pensions and benefits.

The National Careers Service reveals that on average nurses earn £28,594, police officers earn £30,147 and teachers earn £33,659.

Conservative MP Andrew Bridgen told MailOnline: “The grossly hypocritical Marxist dogma adopted by the union barons of the RMT - who are themselves on six figure salaries - states 'from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs'. 

“Those self-same union barons would have you believe that the 'needs' of the train drivers are twice as much as the 'needs' of our nurses.”

Sam Alsop-Hall, chief strategy officer at healthcare recruitment company Woodrow Mercer Healthcare, said: “Where private sector operators are running public sector services that's manifesting itself in the pay and conditions that train drivers are receiving in comparison to their wider public sector peers.

“On the one hand, they have the rights, pensions and union strength of the public sector; on the other they have the competition, market prices and flexibility of the private sector.

“The upshot is they can use the public sector safety net to drive up the private sector prices: a lethal combination for train operator margins as we've seen recently.”

The RMT caused major delays on Wednesday with a 24-hour rail strike.

Only around one in five services were running and some areas had no trains at all.

And another strike is set for Saturday while drivers from nine train companies have agreed to walkout on August 13.