BY IAN CROUCH
Trains have been stopped on the Hunter line following a fatality on Tuesday morning.
Police and ambulance paramedics were called to the overpass near Sandgate Station at about 4.45am to reports a person had been struck by a train.
Police have confirmed a person has died at the scene.
The Transport Management Centre says no trains are running between Maitland and Newcastle Interchange and buses are being organised to replace passenger services.
Court today for a 41-year-old man accused of throwing fuel on a 68-year-old man known to him and lighting a house fire on Castlereagh Street at Singleton yesterday afternoon.
At 5:30pm on Sunday, police were told the older man had rinsed the fuel off and ran from the scene uninjured. A short time later, flames were seen coming from the home, which was later destroyed.
During a search of the 41-year-old man police allegedly located methamphetamine. He was charged with a string of domestic violence related offences to face court today.
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| File / Wikimedia Commons |
The heritage listed Christ Church Cathedral will undergo a major roof restoration over the next 18 months.
The Anglican Diocese says multi-million dollar works include repairing 28 copper roofs, drainage systems and repairing water damaged fabric.
Newcastle Anglican Bishop Dr Peter Stuart says the Cathedral is exposed to all kinds of severe weather.
“Through the storms that we’ve had in recent years and hail damage, there are pock marks all across the Cathedral roof. And so this project is about addressing that rain and water damage and ensuring that the Cathedral is watertight,” he said.
“The wind carries salt water, the salt water gets into the bricks and into the mortar. Effectively, the Cathedral is a building which will need ongoing maintenance, not dissimilar to cathedrals around the world,” he said.
Senior Project Manager at construction firm Duratec MJ Van der Vyver says the Cathedral will remain open.
“We’re starting at the back of the church next year in January, and then anticlockwise around the church up until 2027.
“We’ll be working in stages, so all the work won’t be happening continuously,” he said.
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| Newcastle Anglican Bishop Dr Peter Stuart |
BY IAN CROUCH
The southbound lanes of the M1 Pacific Motorway are closed at Morisset following a truck crash and fire.
Around 11.30pm on Sunday 9 November, 2025 it's understood a semi-trailer loaded with onions crashed into guard rail and caught on fire.
Newcastle Fire Command says the driver was shaken but otherwise unharmed.
Six fire trucks and a duty commander from Newcastle are still at the scene.
An excavator has been brought in to help pull the load apart to allow crews to fully extinguish the blaze.
Crews are currently cleaning up the site and it's hoped the freeway will re-open shortly
In the meantime, motorists can use the Mandalong Road southbound exit to pass the crash scene and rejoin the freeway.
Optus says it’s worked with police to ensure no one was seriously impacted following yesterday’s outage.
Cables were cut yesterday morning at a Hexham telecommunications tower in what police suspect was malicious damage.
The Optus network then went down in parts of Maitland and Port Stephens, and the camp-on system was activated, forcing Telstra towers to take emergency calls from Optus customers.
But some calls didn’t get through. The Telco says police did welfare checks on 13 customers who couldn’t dial the number.
Some were accidental calls, but police found no adverse outcomes.
The network was restored late last night.
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| Supplied / Optus |
BY IAN CROUCH
Police are treating a fire which destroyed a house at Singleton overnight as suspicious.
Two Fire and Rescue and Three RFS crews were called to the weatherboard home in Wattle Ponds Road just before midnight on Wednesday November 5 to find the property up in flames.
Police say no-one is currently living at the home.
It's taken crews almost 3 hours to fully extinguish and mop up the blaze, with firefighting efforts hampered by a lack of water.
Police have set up a crime scene and detectives and forensic officers will examine the burnt out house on Thursday morning.
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| Crews on scene at the house fire at Wattle Ponds Picture Whittingham RFS |
Police say they’ve arrested a third person over the Sydney Junction Hotel hold up involving a Tina Turner style wig.
In the early hours of September 12 a man in a black and brown wig allegedly threatened staff with a firearm before making off with cash on the back of an e-bike west on Hudson Street.
A bag was later seized containing $30,020.
A man and a woman are before the courts charged over the incident.
In a traffic stop on Alick street at Belmont yesterday police arrested a 35-year-old man. He’s been charged with tampering a door and being the getaway e-bike rider.
He’s facing court today.
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| Credit / NSW Police |