COAL supplies are back on track after serious floods at Maitland shut down the Hunter Valley rail network.
Floodwater at Maitland Station damaged tracks and signaling equipment, interrupting at least 220 passenger and supply trips every day for more than nine days.
Hunter power stations were given priorty, as the Australian Rail Track Corporation reinstated limited services to generators like Eraring late last week.
"When we close the network and those floodgates, you stop all the local passenger traffic, the regional trains anywhere from Sydney to Brisbane, Dungog to Scone and to Moree everyday, all of those trains stopped," ARTC Group Hunter Valley network executive Wayne Johnson said.
"The gates were opened last Wednesday for our work to start cleaning the sludge and debris off the tracks ... about 36 hours afterwards we got it back.
"That was of huge importance to the state and our customers."
Origin Energy, which operates Eraring Power Station, had its normal delivery of coal interruped, a spokesman said.
"Heavy rainfall and flooding earlier this month impacted rail services in the Hunter region and coal delivery to the Eraring Power Station," he said.
"We worked closely with our rail providers during this issue with our main rail line and had adequate coal stocks to maintain operations."
The Newcastle Coal Infrastructure Group (NCIG) remained open for business throughout July, with no wet weather impacts on its coal handling services, chief executive Aaron Johansen said.
"Coal receivals during July have been reduced due to flooding of the rail lines at Maitland," he said.
"NCIG commenced receiving coal trains from the Maitland line on Sunday, July 17."
Coal supplies weren't the only commodity impacted, as grain growers in the state's north-west were cut off with the next harvest just around the corner.
NSW Farmers Grain Committee chair Justin Everitt said reinstatement was crucial with a record carry-over harvest.
"We need to make sure every possible grain gets out of the country and these hiccups prolong it and create storage issues going forward," he said.
"You invite the added risk of insect damage, we have another harvest coming in and storages are full, we need that room at harvest time because we can't store it all on-farm."
As of Monday, normal rail services across the Hunter Valley network resumed.
