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Workflow Processes:

• Model Rail Mainline

  This process outlines the tasks and steps for performing a railway design in Civil 3D. The Rail Design process is very similar to roadway design processes, but incorporates design principles unique to railway. In this process the rail alignment type will introduced, along with features to design curves using the degree of curvature based on unit chord length, calculate cant from design criteria files, create design profile using Design Checks, and create a typical mainline rail assembly, and create a rail corridor. Once the rail corridor is modeled it can be validated for issues and revisions made.

• Model Rail Spurs

  Rail design projects will present different challenges and have unique requirements and specifications that must be considered. This Process outlines the most common approach that can be followed to model rail spurs using Civil 3D tools. This process starts with the layout of the alignments, which can be created using the Rail tools and Turnout catalog that ships with Civil 3D. If the turnout configuration you need is not available in the “out of the box” catalog, you can create a custom turnout.
  To create the CAD geometry for the rail spur crossover and turnout alignment will be used. The crossover alignment is intended to create a connecting trail between parallel tracks. The crossover alignments are created using two reverse turnouts, connected by a tangent segment. The Rail tools in Civil 3D allow you to create, edit, and remove crossover alignments from your Civil 3D drawings.
  For a more freeform rail spur you can use turnout alignments. A turnout alignments is created at a connection point with another alignment and can be extended using the Alignment Layout tools in Civil 3D. Turnout alignments are created from the same Turnout catalogs as the crossover alignments, only Turnout alignments are started with a single entity. After starting the turnout alignment you can add floating, fixed, and free segments to the alignment. Additional curves, spirals, and lines can be added to the turnout alignment.
  To set the elevations and grades for the rail spurs, design profiles are used. To create the design profile for rail spurs you can superimpose other rail profiles. This will help match grades between the connected rail alignments, and serve as reference when setting proposed grades.
  To model the rail spur you can use the “out of the box” rail subassemblies that ship with Civil 3D. Among these subassemblies you’ll find component based subassemblies that you can use for multi-track designs, a single track subassembly, double track subassembly, and a platform assembly. The platform assembly is intended to be used with the component based subassemblies for multi-track rail designs. Depending on subassembly that is used, targets can be set for surfaces, track alignments, and track profiles. These targets will need to be used for modeling the rail spurs.
  This rail spur process assumes that a Rail Mainline corridor has already been established and the rail spurs will be added to the Mainline Corridor. To incorporate the rail spurs additional regions will be added to the Mainline corridor, leveraging the rail assemblies from the drawing. When added to the corridor the left and right tracks will be targeted to for each rail spur region.
  To validate the final rail corridor, the section editor will be used. The section editor allows you to step through each corridor section, at every frequency, to examine the rail spur grading. While viewing the corridor sections you can make a note of any issues. To resolve issues you can make revisions to the corridor design, which can consist of editing the alignment properties, editing the alignment and profile geometry, editing the rail assembly, and refining the corridor parameters.
  NOTES:
  This process may not be applicable to every rail spur design, but where necessary, deviations can be made. To customize this workflow make a copy from public content in Pinnacle Series – Content Manager Utility, and refine the task flow and step instructions as needed.