TRAIN conductors embroiled in a year-long pay row will reject a new offer aimed at ending the dispute, union leaders claimed last night.

The prediction came ahead of a ballot of Rail Maritime and Transport Workers at Arriva Trains Northern.

Up to 700 train conductors will vote on a four per cent basic pay offer plus a lump sum of £250 in a ballot predicted last month by The Northern Echo.

Today is the first anniversary of the pay dispute, which began on January 24 last year, and has involved conductors at the company taking 23 days of strike action.

The action is the longest in recent railway history and one of the longest disputes in the North-East.

Last night Stan Herschel, regional organiser with the RMT, said the decision to ballot was to "shut up" train bosses who have repeatedly called for fresh pay offers to be put to the union membership since an original ballot last year.

Mr Herschel said he was pretty confident the membership would reject the latest offer, which he called "obscene".

He said: "Arriva has had the chance to sit down and seriously negotiate with us and has failed miserably.

"Therefore the dispute will continue."

Passenger groups have grown increasingly exasperated at the failure by both sides to find a breakthrough in the pay row.

Fran Critchley, deputy secretary of the North-East Rail Passengers Committee (RPC), said: "We feel very frustrated and at the end of the day it is the passengers who are suffering and the tax payers who are footing the bill for this."

The RPC has called for intervention from the Strategic Rail Authority (SRA) but without response so far .

A spokesman for the SRA, which heavily subsidises Arriva services, said it did not have a role in pay negotiations and it was up to Arriva to come to a settlement which it could manage within its existing budget.

The dispute began when Arriva gave an 18 per cent pay rise to its drivers in a bid to tackle a driver shortage.

A number of different pay offers to conductors have since been rejected.

Euan Cameron, managing director of Arriva Trains, claimed 202 conductors had already accepted a four per cent pay deal. He said he hoped the remaining conductors would accept the offer on the table.

* One of the North-East's longest industrial disputes involved staff at Darlington's Magnet factory and ran for 19 months until sacked workers received a pay settlement.