The companies, also including Brazil's Vale, China's Yanzhou Coal, Swiss company Xstrata and American firm Peabody, are aiming to head off plans to sell shares in the railway on the stock market.

"We aren't making any judgements about it until we've had a really long opportunity to really examine the detail," Queensland state Premier Anna Bligh said through a spokesman.

The consortium is touting its offer as a better alternative to the three billion Australian dollars the state government is planning to raise through the share offering.

Treasurer Andrew Fraser said the government still wanted to float the railway along with freight trucks, but added that it was looking at the new proposal.

"We do believe that the decision that we've made about the structure of QR (Queensland Rail) into the future and the nature of the sale programme that we've decided upon is the right decision, but we will review what's been put forward today," Fraser said.

Australia's Felix and Macarthur are also involved in the bid, as well as Ensham, Jellinbah and Wesfarmers.

-- Dow Jones Newswires contributed to this report --

Sourced from AFP