Southern Railway services will be at a standstill once again after talks with its drivers collapsed yesterday.

The company met with leaders of the train drivers' union Aslef on Thursday in an attempt to solve the dispute over driver-only trains but no agreement was reached.

For the third time this week, all of Southern’s 2,242 weekday services will not be running, affecting around 300,000 passengers.

A group of disgruntled passengers staged a protest at London’s Victoria station on Thursday evening and handed in a letter to the Department for Transport, demanding government action to end the crisis.

A spokesman for the protest organisers, the Association of British Commuters, said: "We have suffered a year-long nightmare because of the collapse of Southern Rail.

“We have desperately called for government action and have been repeatedly ignored - even while many of us have lost our jobs, or had to move house.”

Chief operating officer of Southern's owners Govia Thameslink Railway Nick Brown, said: "We're deeply disappointed, as our passengers will be, that Aslef has been unable to accept our proposals and we cannot find a way forward to end this dispute with the drivers' union at this stage.

"We're sincerely sorry that commuters' work and family lives are being punished with this unjustified and unprecedented industrial action.

“The unions must stop the pain and suffering blighting passengers and commerce.”

"We will continue with our plans to modernise our railway and the services we offer customers. We urge the union to think again and work with us and move forward together."

Mr Brown said the company had put a "practical offer" on the table on Wednesday for the union to consider overnight with the aim of getting Friday's strike called off.

"Passengers and businesses are being held to ransom by the unions' wholly unjustified and unnecessary industrial action," he added. "The real victims of these strikes are passengers who simply want to receive the train service they deserve to get them to work and home again.

"Aslef claims drivers closing doors is inherently unsafe. The Office of Rail and Road and the Rail Safety & Standards Board have stated that drivers closing doors is a safe mode of operation."

Union sources said it was a "non-offer" which would continue the roll out of driver-only trains and did not address Aslef's concerns.

Speaking to the guardian, a driver on Southern Rail said: “There’s lots of things guards do.

"A common occurrence is that passengers in the toilets will hit the alarm instead of flushing the toilet.

"If you’ve got a guard on, you just make an announcement and he then goes and he sorts it out.

"Without a guard, we stop at the next station and we have to shut down the train and maybe walk back eight coaches to reset the alarm in the toilet. Now that train then is 10 minutes late. 

“Guards can see things approaching the platform that a driver can’t see. You know those yellow lines on the platform?

"That’s what’s known as the corridor, that’s the bit we have to make sure is clear. That’s the only bit we can see.

"So if anyone’s running for the train and then stumbles out of picture as we move off, we don’t get to see that. So they could stumble and roll under."

Transport Secretary Chris Grayling said: "I am deeply disappointed that this totally unnecessary strike action is to continue and causing thousands of passengers more disruption and misery.

"I have reaffirmed my offer for talks with the unions if they call off strike action, but they have failed to come to the table without pre-conditions."