After 23 days of national strikes, two years of talking and hundreds of thousands of cancelled trains, rail workers are contemplating a pay rise that barely catches the coat tails of inflation. The rail industry’s biggest industrial dispute in decades may be approaching its final chapter – but with little chance of a happy ending for anyone involved. The pain for passengers is not yet over – four more 24-hour strikes across 14 operators by train and station staff in the biggest rail union, the RMT, start next Thursday, 16 March. But the most disruptive strike action, by Network Rail employees, has been called off, and the RMT has now put a pay deal to a referendum of affected members – including thousands of signallers with the power to bring the whole rail network to a halt. Voting started on Thursday and ends on 20 March on what the union calls a new, improved offer, but in broad terms – 9% over two years – looks little different from the one its national executive committee rejected last month, or another that failed to win a vote before Christmas. But Network Rail is confident that the tweaks, incentives and explanations it has provided will sway the few thousand more staff needed to clear the 50% hurdle. The train companies are further from resolution – with the crises at First Group-owned TransPennine and Avanti underscoring troubled industrial relations. The deal that their train crew and station staff – but not drivers – have been offered has the same headline figures as Network Rail. But the valuable perk of hugely discounted rail travel is one most train company staff already enjoy. And with ticket offices facing wholesale closure, a promise of no compulsory redundancies until 2025 looks like just a short stay of execution. In this long war of attrition, the government may feel it is now close to coming out on top – although ministers, at least the current ones, will probably be too wise to say so. Ultimately, most rail workers had pay frozen in 2021, and now face a rise well below the subsequent rocketing inflation. So real terms wages are lower, while some of the changes Network Rail wished to implement are going ahead. Unions will point to jobs saved, for now, and a deal that boosts the lowest paid, which may never have materialised without their fight. Some red lines and key points of principle have been maintained: the aspirations of ministers to “modernise” by enforcing driver-only operation across the railway have been batted away from the pay offer. There is a widespread view that staff are weary of strikes. Many remain angry at their treatment, after the pandemic when they – like other key workers – kept putting themselves at potential risk for the greater good, and now appear to bearing the brunt of the economic fallout. Many also see all too little gained from the industrial action, with the offers barely improving since December. For some, that frustration may be directed at the union. Rail bosses now note that on three occasions the RMT’s national executive has rejected deals that general secretary Mick Lynch and assistant Eddie Dempsey have reached in the negotiating in the room. Lynch has said this is a hallmark of a democratic union; but internal wranglings pushed him to quit as acting leader in 2019. But as the Network Rail boss, Andrew Haines, has also said publicly, political rhetoric aimed at unions has backfired: ministers such as the ex-transport secretary Grant Shapps “bashing people” only “galvanised the workforce”. Leaders such as Mick Whelan of Aslef have made clear that it is furious members who are pushing them to go harder: more than 90% of drivers voted for strikes last year. Drivers’ union Aslef’s pay deals remain yet to be resolved. But, after a misstep when the Rail Delivery Group – which represents train operators – publicised an offer that had yet to reach Whelan, reframed talks should lead to pay rises of a similar scope, without triggering further strikes. A “one size fits all” solution looks improbable if the industry really seeks reform – some firms’ drivers already work Sundays to contract, and salaries range from £45,000 to £82,000 – but, as elsewhere, all sides are hoping to dial down the rhetoric and demands for reform. Drivers are well paid – but remain in short supply. So who has won? At the beginning of this standoff in 2021, the Covid-battered rail industry, including unions, was trying to work out how it could do things differently to cut costs after many regular commuters disappeared. Many more passengers may have returned without the dispute. Rail, as the government has spelled out, has high costs – but the year of strikes prompted by the Treasury squeeze has cost the industry a further £500m in revenue. In the short term, is hard to see any real winners – only losses to taxpayers and passengers, while rail stumbles on.