Union leaders claim putting off the replacement of Sussex railway lines is putting lives at risk.

Members of the RMT union will be protesting today against a range of Network Rail proposals, including a national 1,500 job cut by April 2010.

Greg Hewitt, the local branch chairman of the RMT, said the mixture of job cuts, staff reorganisation and deferring track replacement was a "recipe for disaster".

Network Rail denies that its proposals would make the railways less safe.

But Mr Hewitt warned that they would leave huge sections of track unchecked by staff, who already had a backlog of work they could not deal with.

Network Rail has been put under pressure to reduce its spending by the Office of Railway Regulations watchdog.

It accused the RMT of “needless scaremongering”.