Several mining, transport and engineering groups are celebrating the announcement of a large-scale rail link in Western Australia, but the company set to build it says no-one should hold their breath just yet.

A new independent railway is now in its planning stages following an agreement between Atlas Iron and Aurizon, the country’s biggest freight rail operator. Aurizon CEO Lance Hockridge made the announcement on ABC's Inside Business program, but it was tempered by news the $10 billion rail network in the remote region would need the support of several nearby mining companies.

“The concept is essentially open access,” Mr Hockridge said, “It would be open to all comers, as opposed to being dedicated to individual miners... We come from a mindset that this is a 30 to 40-year business, we're very much in the early stages of our investigation and I don't think that there'll be any resolution of that any time soon... it's at concept phase and we need to do a good deal more work.”

The Brockman Mining Group is reportedly on board, signing a three year agreement with Aurizon that will see it build and operate rail and port infrastructure for the company’s Marillana and Ophthalmia mines.

The new rail line should lead to hefty profits for those who get in early; reports say Atlas Iron pays an average of $13 a tonne to transport iron ore from the Pilbara mines to Port Hedland, that price could to as low as 5c to 6c per tonne per kilometre if the rail lines are built like those on east coast coal networks.

It is not all boom for Aurizon though, and likely part of the reason they need other investors to get the rail link underway, the company has recently announced plans to cut costs by more than $230 million over the next two years through job cuts and property sales.