Seymour Railway Heritage Centre president John Crofts said conversations with Australian Rail Track Corporation and V/Line representatives on Tuesday April 16 had left him feeling optimistic.

"I'm highly confident we'll get the approval and we'll get in time to run the train on the 14^th of June," Mr Crofts said.

He is aiming to have a heritage train travel from Melbourne to Yarrawonga on the date, a Friday, and then return on the following Sunday, with lunch train to Benalla slated for the Saturday.

Tickets have already gone on sale for the services, even though the ARTC is yet to approve the journeys on the Benalla-Yarrawonga line which is generally used for grain haulage.

The corridor, which extends to Oaklands in the Riverina, is subject to a route access standard which specifies a ban on passenger trains.

"The Benalla to Oaklands route is a designated freight line and as such no heritage and/or passenger services are permitted to operate on this line without prior permission from the ARTC Interstate Network, General Manager Operations Services," the route access standard declares.

Mr Crofts is seeking a waiver to that edict.

He said his heritage centre had previously run broad gauge tourist trains before the line was converted to standard gauge in 2009.

The AK train, which assesses the condition of a track through geometry, ran return from Benalla to Oaklands on April 10.

The data it provides will determine whether the line remains subject to a 30km/h speed limit or that figure increases.

Mr Crofts, based on his talks with the ARTC, believes that figure will not alter.

"The speed limit on the track will not be increased from 30km/h for now," he said before adding "the defects in the tracks are not such that a passenger car would not be precluded from running.

"So it's staying at 30, which is neither here nor there for us, we've based all our planning on 30km/h."

The ARTC declined to comment definitively, when asked about the 30km/h speed limit being altered.

"ARTC is continuing its engineering assessment of the Oaklands Line, which includes reviewing the results of the AK car's recent examination," a spokesperson said.

"While we conduct this work, no decision will be made on potential changes to the temporary speeds in place on the line.

"We continue to work in conjunction with all parties, including Seymour Railway Heritage Centre on this matter."

Mr Crofts hopes that he will receive official approval for his tours from the authorities in mid-May.

That timeframe would allow time to ensure prospective drivers, who come from a pool of heritage train operators overseen by V/Line, to be familiar with line between Benalla and Yarrawonga.

Mr Crofts said some of them were likely to be grain train drivers who already traverse the route.