Telstra Outage Disrupts NSW Train Services, Impacts Emergency Calls

The national Telstra outage has led to train services in the NSW Hunter region, Southern Highlands and between Sydney and Canberra being suspended.

TfNSW said multiple lines had been impacted, due to a loss of communications caused by the outage.

Regional and intercity rail networks rely on Telstra infrastructure to facilitate critical communication.

In Newcastle, passenger services on the Hunter Line between Newcastle Interchange and Maitland were cancelled on Wednesday morning.

"Trains are not running between these stations due to an external telecommunication issue, " a TfNSW spokesperson said in a statement.

"Passengers should continue to allow extra travel time, listen to announcements and check information displays for service updates."

The outage has since been extended to the entire Hunter Line, between Newcastle to Scone and Dungog.

Commuter Wayne caught a train earlier this morning from Telarah, near Maitland, to Newcastle to attend a gym session this morning and was waiting for a replacement bus to take him home.

"By the time I got to the gym I wasn't able to use the gym app that I normally use, but [when I] finished and came to the train station there were no trains on the Hunter Line," he said.

"I do have (reception) at the moment, but not everyone has it."

He said it had disrupted his day, but as a retiree, it was mainly just an inconvenience.

"I've got some stuff to do later this afternoon, but it hasn't really impacted me that greatly, but I can understand it's probably affected a lot of people."

Passengers were on board some services when the outage hit.

One was cancelled at Tarro train station, with passengers able to alight and wait for buses, or to organise alternate transport by road.

Sydney spared, ACT to NSW link halted

TfNSW said there had been no reports of Sydney Metropolitan services or Opal systems being affected.

However, acting coordinator-general Matt Longland told 666 ABC Canberra services to and from the nation's capital had been brought to a halt mid-journey after communication was lost with the control centre.

NSW Police said people may need to call Triple Zero (000) using a non-Telstra device in the event of an emergency.

"Triple Zero systems are not affected, but you may not be able to reach Triple Zero if you are calling from a Telstra device," NSW Police said in a statement.

"If you try to call Triple Zero and can't get through, we recommend using another device, a landline or Wi-Fi calling."

NSW Health Minister Ryan Park said a management centre had been stood up in the ambulance division to ensure any calls that drop out are detected and responded to.

He said he was not aware of anyone being unable to contact Triple Zero or of anyone missing telehealth appointments.

Mr Park said the hospital systems were "holding up well" with backup systems ensuring continuity of service.

Sydney Airport said its operations were not affected but commuters had been inconvenienced.

Nick, who was travelling from Sydney to Melbourne, said the outage made it "difficult to plan my day".

"I can't see where I'm going, it's hard to organise my flights and call family," he told ABC News Breakfast this morning from the domestic terminal.

Kim, who was heading to the Gold Coast for her child's dance competition, said her phone was flicking between 5G and SOS, draining her battery.

"I couldn't log on to find out if my flight was on time … I had no access to internet at all."

Felicia from Newcastle is travelling to Uluru and had her maps drop out en route to the airport.

"We were worried about actually navigating here, we were about 20 minutes late or so," she said.

"I had to use another phone to find out what was going on, which still had service, but [Telstra] should have a backup plan."

Coal and freight trains impacted