Delays Ahead

GDL union officials said that 95.8 percent of the 12,000 union members voted in favor of the strike.

The union aims to achieve a separate labor contract and a pay rise of up to 31 percent.

A last-ditch attempt to avert industrial action failed on Friday when GDL rejected a new offer by the state-owned railways Deutsche Bahn (DB).

Schell said he expected that 90 percent of the 12,000 members eligible to take part in the ballot would vote in favor of striking. It would be the first major strike to hit the rail company in 15 years.

In an interview with the Welt am Sonntag newspaper, GDL chairman Manfred Schell said the only way the Deutsche Bahn would avoid strikes in the coming week would be to make an acceptable offer by Tuesday.

"Nothing else is going to work," Schell added.

Unions demand different deals

Deutsche Bahn has offered an inflation-beating 4.5-percent increase, the same it agreed with two larger unions representing 134,000 workers, following a series of pinpoint strikes last month.

But the rail operator has refused to sanction a separate contract for the smaller GDL, arguing that such a move could prompt the other unions to make fresh demands.

The GDL maintains that train drivers, some of them piloting passenger trains at speeds in excess of 200 kilometers an hour, earn as little as 1,500 euros ($2,070) a month in take-home pay.

DB claims that most drivers earn supplements that lift net pay to 2,100 euros.

Pack up the car

In order to avoid delays, the rail passenger lobby group Pro Bahn has recommended that people who have not yet bought train tickets should travel by car, while those who already have tickets should call the Bahn hotline or visit its Web site for the latest information, the group's chairman Karl-Peter Naumann told the AFP news agency on Sunday.

The rail operator is drawing up contingency plans to cushion the impacts of the strike, including the use of buses for local services and drafting in administrative staff with train drivers' licenses.

The planned general strike would affect some 5 million people daily by stopping some 28,000 passenger trains and 4,780 cargo trains.

Bahn threatens suit

Deutsche Bahn chief executive Hartmut Mehdorn's has warned that the dispute could cost the company millions of euros and threatened to sue the union for damages if their action is deemed illegal.

"If illegal actions lead to millions in damages for the Bahn, we naturally want compensation for them," he told Der Speigel newsmagazine on Saturday.

GDL head Schell called Mehdorn statement "completely absurd" and said the union would neither be influenced by the Bahn's tactics nor start an illegal labor fight.

The union sought a series of injunctions to avert the stoppage but was successful only in Germany's most populous state of North Rhine-Westphalia, where a labor court outlawed industrial action in local services.