The group of councils, calling itself the Food Bowl Inland Rail Alliance, is seeking meetings with Nationals leader Barnaby Joyce and Infrastructure Minister Darren Chester to argue for the freight rail line to pass through the food-growing regions from Shepparton in Victoria to Jerilderie and Narrandera in NSW.

The Australian Rail Track Corporation's preferred route would run from Albury to Wagga Wagga and on to Parkes while the alliance is pushing for the line to head inland to Shepparton and on to Tocumwal and Narrandera before going to Parkes.

On Wednesday, Mr Chester told Fairfax Media there was no plan to alter ARTC's preferred route.

"Using and upgrading the existing interstate rail freight network reduces the impact on communities and lowers the cost of land acquisition and construction," he said.

Previous studies for the federal government found the "Shepparton option" would save 30 minutes of travel time between Brisbane and Melbourne and freight hauled by 2025 would be 1.75 million tonnes compared to 220,000 tonnes if the "Albury option" is retained for the 1700km project, to be built by 2024.

A 2015 report by Deloitte for the Department of Infrastructure and Regional Development found the Shepparton option would require 190 kilometres of new track, compared to just 37 kilometres on the Albury alignment, which would predominantly require upgrading existing track.

The Shepparton option would require a capital investment of $1.5 billion compared to $208 million for the current alignment.

Deloitte said the shorter, flatter Shepparton route "did not translate into significant benefits for Inland Rail users and would not improve the market share for Inland Rail intercapital freight".

Former Nationals leader John Anderson, who presided over the Inland Rail's implementation group report in 2015 found the freight benefits of the Shepparton option did not outweigh the costs.

The alliance, which includes the local government areas of Mitchell, Greater Shepparton and Moira in Victoria, and Berrigan, Jerilderie, Urana, Griffith, Leeton and Narrandera, met with Pauline Hanson and other One Nation senators last week during their listening tour of the Murray-Darling.

Alliance spokesman Wesley Hall, a Narrandera councillor, said Senator Hanson understood the benefits of the food-bowl route.

"We feel the decision on the route has been more political than nation-building," he said.

Inland Rail has been a long-held dream for the Nationals but even Mr Anderson's 2015 report found it would be a marginal, if worthwhile, public investment.

He said the line would deliver a net economic benefit but the expected operating revenue over 50 years would not cover the initial capital investment and the project would therefore not attract the private-sector investment required to build it.

Mr Anderson said the business case for the $10 billion project would be eroded if a future government allowed B-triple trucks or super B-doubles for inter-capital freight on the Hume, Pacific and Newell highways.

Freight expert Luke Fraser, an adviser to Infrastructure Australia's Infrastructure Financing Group and former Howard government staffer, has previously described Inland Rail as "lunacy" without more stringent road freight pricing to reflect impact on highways.

"Several hundred pages of government business case fail to present a plausible commercial prospect to investors at even the thinnest rates of return," he wrote.

"Spending taxpayer treasure to build this would be lunacy."

Mr Fraser said the flat truck pricing system in Australia was akin to electricity companies charging a flat connection fee for suburban homes and large factories.

"The quantum of fees raised might be right, but home-owners rightly would be furious at having to cross-subsidise the business sector."

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