Mildura is still waiting to get its train line back, but it isn't taking the lack of action by the Brumby government quietly.

Last night, 1200 of the area's 60,000 residents - one of the biggest turnouts in the town's history, according to the mayor - met to demand the return of train services.

The Transport Department is studying whether the train can run again. The only public transport to Melbourne is the bus, and the trip, combined with a train, can take up to nine hours.

That bus service was not good enough for the department's officials at last night's meeting. They enraged locals by saying they had flown from Melbourne because the bus took too long.

Former premier Steve Bracks repeatedly promised independent MP Russell Savage that he would get the line reopened. ''I should have got him to write the promise down,'' Mr Savage said from his home in Queensland, where he has moved.

Since coming to government in 1999, Labor has returned trains to Bairnsdale and Ararat, and it will return services to Maryborough this year. It reneged on a promise to return trains to Leongatha, instead providing more buses.

Mildura mayor Glenn Milne said the government had ''got back into power by promising this train back, and they didn't do it''. Mildura was the only major regional city in Australia that did not have a rail connection to a capital city, he said. ''Swan Hill, Shepparton, Warrnambool, they've all got a rail line.''

Former Mildura resident Bruce McLean fought for years to have the rail line reopened. ''In 2004, Labor announced again [the line] would come back in … Nothing happened.''

The opposition has not committed to bringing the rail line back, and will say only that it will examine the government's feasibility study, due out in June.

Public Transport Minister Martin Pakula's spokesman said the government was doing the feasibility study into returning passenger services after a $73 million upgrade of the rail line for freight.