Connell Hatch has been chosen from eight firms to conduct a $300,000 federally-funded study into the viability of the abandoned freight line.

The project began under the Wran government in 1983 and was abandoned under Nick Greiner in 1988.

Hatch manager Bob Henson said the company would be dusting off its old reports saved from when it first began work on the project in 1980.

"We were involved in looking at the routes ... it is good now to be able to pick up those threads and reinitiate the project," he said. "The database of information that we have when we worked on the job back in 1980 will be very useful."

Standing metres from where future freight trains might set off on the line, Port Kembla Port Corporation CEO Dom Figliomeni said he had been lobbying for the study for at least three years. He said the report was an important first step in recognising the economic advantages of completing the rail line.

"The idea of the study is to basically whet the appetite to see if there is a business case to take it to a detailed economic feasibility on the project," he said. "What (the study) does is recognise the need for the rail line - it recognises this is something the community has asked for and something we need to look at in relation to the changing freight dynamics in the region."

The study was an election pledge by federal MP Sharon Bird. Together with member for Throsby Jennie George, she said she believed the study would show there was an economic case to complete the rail line.

"Jennie and I may have stuck our head up on this and go down in flames but we think it's worth the fight," Ms Bird said.