Federal health minister and Broken Hill's local MP Sussan Ley will lobby her colleagues to reintroduce subsidies for economy seating on the Indian Pacific train service.

The train's operator Great Southern Rail plans to remove seating cars from the service next year, causing concern in Broken Hill because there's no other rail link to Adelaide.

The operator blamed the move to only offer more expensive sleeping cars and raise fares across the board on the federal government's decision to stop subsidising concession travel on Great Southern Rail's services.

There was concern among older people in Broken Hill and rural doctors that the plans leave pensioners and those needing to travel for medical treatment without an affordable or a practical option.

Ms Ley met with Great Southern Rail on Thursday and said she believes the company no longer treats concessional travel as a priority.

Great Southern Rail also operates The Ghan service from Adelaide to Darwin which is also affected by the plan.

"I don't think it makes sense for Australia to have a transnational railway link both east-west and north-south that doesn't have economy travel built into its model," Ms Ley said.

"I'm going to work very hard to see what we can do jointly, with all of the states and territories, to see what we can do to restore an economy seating service."

Ms Ley said the company indicated it would reconsider its decision if the seating carriages were subsidised.

"They indicated a willingness to reconsider a 'red service' economy seating carriage, and it would require some underwriting in dollars from both state and federal governments."

She is planning to meet social services minister Scott Morrison next week.