The Transport Salaried Staffs Association (TSSA) said its members working as supervisors voted by 56% in favour of strikes and 77% in support of industrial action short of a strike.

Two other groups of white-collar workers in TSSA backed industrial action, while managers voted against.

It follows the announcement by the Rail Maritime and Transport union that its maintenance members have backed industrial action.

No strike dates will be announced before next Friday when the RMT will reveal the result of a ballot among Network Rail (NR) signal workers.

TSSA leader Gerry Doherty said: "It is not too late for Network Rail to listen to its workforce and the rail regulator, who said last week that their proposed changes could endanger safety.

"The regulator warned Iain Coucher (NR chief executive) not to impose change on the workforce but consult with them instead.

"He should drop his macho management style and start serious discussions with us to solve this problem."

Talks between union leaders and NR will be held next Thursday in an attempt to resolve the dispute.

An NR spokesman said: "We don't want a strike, we want to talk and find a solution for TSSA's members.

"This company needs to modernise how it goes about its daily work of looking after the railway infrastructure and we want to take our people and the union with us to help deliver an even better railway for everyone."

The RMT announced yesterday that 77% of its members who took part in the ballot backed strikes, with 89% supporting action short of a strike.

NR said it had contingency plans to deal with any strikes over Easter and maintained that the vast majority of job cuts would be achieved through voluntary redundancy.

The firm said it needed to change working practices so that more staff worked at weekends to make repairs and maintenance more efficient.