The Dutch national railway operator cancelled almost all trains on Tuesday after workers went on strike demanding pay to match soaring inflation, stranding hundreds of thousands of commuters.

The walkout, called after a deadlock in talks with the management of the national rail company NS, also seeks to fill a backlog of jobs left empty by the coronavirus pandemic.

Rail workers have staged smaller strikes for the past three days, but Tuesday's targeted the crucial rail hub in the central city of Utrecht, knocking out rail traffic nationwide.

Trains were only running between Schiphol Airport and Amsterdam, along with international services to Brussels, Paris and London.

"Due to a strike there will be no NS trains in the Netherlands today," a voice announced at empty stations around the country, where more than 620,000 people commute by rail daily according to NS figures for 2021.

Smaller regional train services were operating as usual.

Unions are demanding a salary increase linked to inflation -- currently at over 10 percent for the first time since the 1970s -- plus 100 euros gross per month and a minimum wage of 14 euros an hour.

They also want better working conditions and for NS to fill around 1,400 unfilled positions.

"At the moment negotiations are deadlocked," Hans Walthie, spokesman for the umbrella FNV trade union federation, told AFP.

"The ball is now in the NS's court".

NS, which is offering an eight percent increase over 30 months, said it "fully understands" the strikers' concerns.

But spokesman Oscar van Elferen said NS was also dealing with a tight labour market, rising prices and a drop in travellers.

"The coronavirus pandemic had a huge impact on our passenger numbers," van Elferen told AFP.

Dutch deputy infrastructure minister Vivianne Heijnen urged both sides to resolve the impasse, saying the strike was "extremely annoying for all train passengers."

© Agence France-Presse