Confused Sydney commuters face a once-in-a-generation weekend shutdown of Australia’s largest urban rail network unless a last-ditch meeting can avert the crisis.

Trains from Newcastle to Wollongong and across Sydney are due to stop from Friday morning until Sunday night amid an escalating pay dispute between the NSW government and drivers.

The Labor government had warned commuters about a four-day stoppage. That was reduced to three days on Wednesday, which the Rail, Tram and Bus Union said was due to train officials misreading its initial demands.

NSW Premier Chris Minns told parliament he would meet the union late on Wednesday to try to break the impasse.

Union secretary Toby Warnes said the shutdown could be avoided if the government met its demand of 24-hour rail operations.

“All it would take is a couple of extra services between 1am and 4am in the morning,” he said.

“This is a clear choice by the government to shut the network down.”

Transport Minister Jo Haylen said the onus was on the union to drop its work bans after a proposal to run one line for 24 hours failed to halt the strike plan.

That’s proving a challenge under the weight of other union work bans limiting kilometres driven and signal operations. Services did run around the clock last previous weekend to ward off stop-work bans.

Sydney’s train network moves more than one million people on a typical day.

The decision to run trains on Thursday will likely be a relief to the thousands heading for Sydney Olympic Park for a Pearl Jam concert that night. But there is still no update on plans for the American rockers’ second concert on Saturday night.

The shutdown will also affect soccer fans heading to Sydney Olympic Park on Friday and Saturday for four A-League games.

“The government will keep its options open, but right now, our focus is to bring this together, not to take court action and to drive it apart,” Haylen said.

“My No.1 priority is minimising disruption to passengers and keeping the network moving.”

That’s proving a challenging task under the weight of other union work bans limiting kilometres driven and signal operations.

Opposition Leader Mark Speakman said “industrial terrorism”, ministerial incompetence and government cowardice were to blame.

“This is a minister who is out of her depth … who leaves the public confused as to whether this is a lockdown by the state or a strike by the workers,” he said.

The industrial action already brought more than 100 train cancellations during Tuesday’s afternoon peak, stoppages along inter-city lines and re-working of shift duties.

Minns also weighed into the fray earlier, calling leaders of the rail union and peak body Unions NSW. But the stalemate has continued.

The union wants four annual pay rises of 8 per cent and a 35-hour work week, while the government has not budged since June from its offer of 11 per cent over three years.

Warnes denied there had been any concession to keep trains running on Thursday, saying its action “clearly specified it would only start on Friday”.

He also described the shutdown as “a major overreaction” and suggested work bans would cause only some weekend disruptions.

“They haven’t been engaging with us on the issues we need them to engage with us on,” he told Sky News.

“We’re hoping that this big hoo-ha will bring about that engagement again.”

The ongoing stand-off has resulted in workers being asked to plan to work from home on Friday to ease the strain on bus replacements.

“We will do everything we can, but we cannot accommodate a million people a day switching to other modes of transport,” transport secretary Josh Murray said.

Business Sydney director Paul Nicolaou said 24-hour trains would benefit the city, but they should not be used as a union bargaining tactic.

Transport officials said continuing services around the clock from Thursday to Sunday was not sustainable due to maintenance schedules.

The Sydney Metro from Chatswood in the north to Sydenham in the inner west is also closed for maintenance on the weekend, with Transport for NSW advising commuters to “use train services”.

-with AAP