Hunter line

The Hunter line is a regional railway service operated by NSW TrainLink. The line runs from the central business district of Newcastle, on the coast, northwest to Scone and Dungog in the Hunter Valley area.

Route
The Hunter line services run along several different railway lines: Main North line: Islington Junction ↔ Maitland ↔ Scone
 * Newcastle branch line: Newcastle ↔ Islington Junction (just south of Hamilton)
 * North Coast Line: Maitland ↔ Dungog

Removed Routes
Cessnock Branch: Maitland/East Greta ↔ Cessnock

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Services
The line has two branches: Newcastle to Scone and Newcastle to Dungog.

At most times, services only run between Telarah and Newcastle at a frequency of 2 trains per hour. One train is express, skipping some stops in the core section between Maitland and Newcastle and the other makes all stops. The express train doesn't run on weekends, reducing the frequency to 1 per hour. Once every few hours, both Telarah services are extended and run express, with one each going to Scone and Dungog. Some services on the Scone branch only run as far as Muswellbrook.

There are a few request stops and short platform (SPM - alight from centre 1 or 2 doors) stations on both branches west of Maitland.

Rolling stock
All trains on the line consist of 2 car sets only, however sets can be coupled together to form 4 car trains if required.

Until 2007, 620 & 720 class diesel railcars (DMUs) built in the 1960s previously serviced the line.

They were replaced by the Hunter railcars, which are also DMUs. These trains were built by United Group Rail (UGL) and were brought into service between November 2006 and September 2007. There are also one or two Endeavour railcars on the line.

Ticketing
Ticketing on the Hunter line now uses the Opal system. It formerly used the MyZone paper ticketing system with all stations on this line being in the MyMulti 3 zone. Stations between Newcastle and Telarah were also within the Green Newcastle TravelPass zone, which was a legacy system from before MyZone that wasn't phased out in Newcastle until Opal was implemented.