It was going to be Leo Taylor's first ever train ride. He was heading to watch The Lion King musical at the Capitol Theatre in Sydney.
"I'm very sad I couldn't go in the train," said the five-year-old from Jerrabomberra, who was standing alongside his grandmother, Louise Rogers, outside the Canberra railway station in Kingston on Wednesday, July 8.
The boy and his grandmother were two of the many disappointed passengers who were waiting for an NSW TrainLink bus to arrive after a nationwide Telstra outage abruptly suspended train services between Canberra and Sydney.
"We were looking to catch the train at 11am but were told the service has been suspended," said Ms Rogers, who was waiting until 12.30pm for the bus to arrive.
The two have a return train trip from Sydney to Canberra scheduled on Friday.
"We are hoping the situation will be resolved by then so that Leo can take his first train ride," she said.
On Wednesday morning, the outage struck the country, which led to halted train services, disabled payment platforms and failed emergency calls.
An NSW TrainLink staff member said three buses would replace the disrupted train service from Canberra to Sydney, which was at capacity with 150 commuters.
At the time of reporting, one of the three buses was outside the railway station. Although the other two were on the way, the staff member said they could not find their location due to the network outage.
Canberra resident Brendan Gawdry was caught up in the disruption after the network failure crippled the railway service to Sydney.
Mr Gawdry said he was more concerned about the impact on emergency services and people who may need urgent help.
"It's been inconvenient - I'll probably get to Sydney about two hours later - but I'm more concerned about people relying on the triple zero number, and hopefully that's going to be fixed sooner than later," Mr Gawdry said.
Lifelong friends Judy Better of Gladesville and Pauline Hope of Wanaka said they were relaxed about the disruption as these things happen.
Another traveller said he had been seriously considering switching his mobile service from Optus to Telstra after the triple zero Optus scandal.
He said despite the outage, Telstra was still the safest and biggest provider and Optus was the one that needed to get an absolute firing.
Communications Minister Anika Wells said the core triple zero system remained operational, although some callers had been unable to get through and those cases were being investigated by Telstra.
Ms Wells said telecommunications companies had strict requirements for welfare checks on disconnected triple zero calls and the triple zero custodian was in regular contact with Telstra about the progress and outcomes of those checks.
She urged people who could not get through on triple zero to try another device, a landline or Wi-Fi calling, and not to make test calls.
"The key priorities for today are to get people back online and ensure any welfare checks are completed urgently," Ms Wells said, adding that the Australian Communications and Media Authority would conduct a full investigation and Telstra would have to account for how and why the outage occurred.
A Telstra representative said on Wednesday afternoon that most of its services had been restored.
"We've made good progress restoring services, with just under 90 per cent of calls and data now flowing successfully across the network," the representative said.
"Our teams are working as quickly as possible to restore remaining services and get all customers back online."
