The owners of Southern Railway have lodged an appeal against a court decision refusing an injunction to prevent industrial action by drivers.

Members of Aslef are set to stage three days of strikes next week which will halt all of Southern's services.

Govia Thameslink Railway lost a bid in the High Court to obtain an injunction to stop the action from going ahead.

Charles Horton, chief executive of GTR, said in a statement: “This industrial action is having a severe and significant impact on our ability to run our train services and causing massive disruption to the 500,000 passengers who travel with us every day.

"We were granted permission yesterday by the Judge to make an urgent appeal and we have a duty to our passengers to do all we can to prevent the wholly unjustified industrial action continuing.

"Our passengers have suffered months of travel misery and we call again on the unions to call off their action and work with us to find a resolution to their dispute."

No date has yet been allocated for the Court of Appeal hearing.

Drivers started a ban on overtime this week which coincided with a three-day walkout by members of the Rail, Maritime and Transport union, leading to half of Southern services being cancelled.

Services continued to be hit on Friday even though the RMT strike ended at midnight.

The RMT is embroiled in a bitter dispute over the role of conductors while Aslef is opposed to driver-only trains.

Drivers from both unions are due to strike on Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday of next week and for six days in January.