Track Design
UndergraduateTAS-JEE1552025
Course information for 2025 intake View information for 2024 course intake
- Study method
- 100% online
- Assessments
- 100% online
- Enrol by
- 16 Feb 2025
- Entry requirements
- Part of a degree
- Duration
- 14 weeks
- Price from
- $3,239
- Upfront cost
- $0
- Loan available
- HECS-HELP and FEE-HELP available
Track Design
About this subject
Upon successful completion of this subject, the student should be able to:
- Identify the important features of track alignment to ensure safe operation of trains
- Explain the relationship between track and train dimensions, alignment and transit to ensure safe clearances between trains and the surrounding infrastructure
- Undertake basic design of a ballast track structure for efficient use of railway business resources in building and maintaining track
- Describe the process of rail and sleeper selection for safe cost-effective track design and maintenance
- Apply the key influences affecting lateral track stability to avoid train derailments
- Introduction to alignment
- Determining alignment; horizontal curves and vertical alignment
- Introduction to train transit clearances
- Kinematic envelope and structure gauge
- Introduction to ballasted track design
- Vertical loads - vertical, impact and curving forces; vertical internal loads in track
- Lateral loads and lateral curving forces; lateral geometric and environmental loads
- Longitudinal loads on track
- Track design - rails
- Track design - sleepers and rail seat load; design of a concrete sleeper
- Track design - substructure
- Track design - stability of track to resist buckling
In JEE151 Fundamentals of Track Engineering you learned about the various components from which track is constructed. However, simply knowing about these components will not enable you to have any meaningful insight into the complex interactions between each of those components, nor how to manipulate them for effective design of a track’s structure. Neither does that knowledge mean you know how the alignment of the track is selected to ensure trains can traverse the track safely and speedily. Design of railway tracks requires you to have some understanding of track alignment issues and requires you to build on your knowledge of track components. Those components influence each other significantly but they also have limitations in carrying forces applied by passing trains or by environmental factors. The subject also provides some further foundation knowledge to enable you to understand the forces of interaction between the track and trains that will be explored later in the subject Track Defects and Track-train Interaction.
- Test or Quiz (33%)
- Design/Drawing - Ballasted railway track (34%)
- Data Analysis on Train and Track (33%)
For textbook details check your university's handbook, website or learning management system (LMS).
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Entry requirements
Part of a degree
To enrol in this subject you must be accepted into one of the following degrees:
Core
- TAS-ENR-DIP-2025 - Diploma of Engineering Infrastructure (Rail Specialisation)
Prior study
You must either have successfully completed the following subject(s) before starting this subject, or currently be enrolled in the following subject(s) in a prior study period; or enrol in the following subject(s) to study prior to this subject:
Please note that your enrolment in this subject is conditional on successful completion of these prerequisite subject(s). If you study the prerequisite subject(s) in the study period immediately prior to studying this subject, your result for the prerequisite subject(s) will not be finalised prior to the close of enrolment. In this situation, should you not complete your prerequisite subject(s) successfully you should not continue with your enrolment in this subject. If you are currently enrolled in the prerequisite subject(s) and believe you may not complete these all successfully, it is your responsibility to reschedule your study of this subject to give you time to re-attempt the prerequisite subject(s).
Additional requirements
No additional requirements
Study load
- 0.125 EFTSL
- This is in the range of 10 to 12 hours of study each week.
Equivalent full time study load (EFTSL) is one way to calculate your study load. One (1.0) EFTSL is equivalent to a full-time study load for one year.
Find out more information on Commonwealth Loans to understand what this means to your eligibility for financial support.
Related degrees
Once you’ve completed this subject it can be credited towards one of the following courses
Diploma of Engineering Infrastructure (Rail Specialisation)
UndergraduateTAS-ENR-DIP