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Study online with University of Tasmania through Open Universities Australia. Explore all degrees, subjects and short courses now.

The Diploma of Engineering Infrastructure (Rail Specialisation) is designed to provide upskilling for professional engineers, engineering graduates, and technically qualified staff who are interested in reskilling to pursue a career in track engineering. Current projected national rail projects exceed A$7bn by 2027, with an anticipated workforce demand of 35,000 and an estimated shortfall of 12,000 skilled professionals. Responding to this projected demand, this course has been developed by industry, for industry. You will learn from staff who are recognised national industry experts, and who are currently all working in the rail sector. The course content is built around the lecturer’s real-world experience, case studies delivered in workshops, group work, and discussion forums, to ensure the knowledge, skills, and confidence you gain can be applied immediately. It is the only university level rail engineering degree offered in Australia. When you graduate, you will have gained a solid foundation in track engineering, legislation, and regulation, and have the skills to supervise or participate in the design, construction, commissioning, monitoring, maintaining, and management of rail track.

Dive into designing, constructing, commissioning, monitoring, maintaining and managing a section of track. Build skills to communicate and ensure the track meets standards. 

Diploma of Engineering Infrastructure (Rail Specialisation)

Engineering Design and Innovation

Engineering Materials

Structures 2

Trains run on tracks within the rail corridor, which is a defined strip of land for the exclusive purpose of the railway business. However, within that corridor there are many items and infrastructure not only to ensure that trains can run effectively, efficiently and economically, but also to allow the passage of cars, pedestrians, passengers, freight, etc within the corridor, over it, under it, and through it. Some examples of that infrastructure include bridges, platforms, electrical substations, overhead wiring, tunnels, buildings of many types, signalling masts and related equipment, etc. Knowledge of issues that can be associated with that infrastructure, as well as need for its maintenance, will help the track engineer to ensure the continued passage of trains, customers and products throughout the rail corridor. This subject, Associated Infrastructure, will introduce you to most of that infrastructure, its types, roles, defects and maintenance. The subject is located early in your course to help you maintain a broad view of the responsibilities of the track engineer beyond being concerned with just the track itself.

Associated Infrastructure

Railways were invented in Britain over 200 years ago, and it is difficult to overstate the fundamental and critically important role they have played in the development of nations, the progress of wars, and the prosperity of peoples the world over. Railways tend to be divided into two segments: above rail (ie trains, rollingstock, wagons) and below rail (ie railway tracks). The two segments interact closely in the development and transmission of complex dynamic forces into the earth beneath the tracks. As a track engineer it’s vital that you know what the components are in modern rail tracks, their role, how they perform, the influence of their manufacture, and their interaction with the trains passing over them. For this purpose in your railway course the first subject you encounter is Fundamentals of Track Engineering, in which you learn these rudiments of track and its behaviour. This subject is essential to your progress through the course and you must successfully complete this subject before you can tackle subjects dealing with issues such as track design, track defects, track maintenance, etc.

Fundamentals of Track Engineering

In previous subjects you have learned about the components making up the structure of a track in the rail corridor, as well as learning about the broad range of other infrastructure within the corridor for which the civil engineer would be responsible. Everything within the corridor had to be built and needs to be maintained, and design of infrastructure is pointless without its eventual construction. This subject is built around a comprehensive and multi-faceted case study in which you will work on interdependent construction projects within an overarching infrastructure development scenario. You will work in a team of colleagues within this subject, because the amount of work involved in each project requires a team effort, but also because all infrastructure construction in the rail industry requires teams drawn from many disciplines. Interaction and collaboration of the teams in this subject is an essential part of the learning and of the assessment. Your participation in and contribution to your team and its project and responsibilities will be closely assessed and will be considered in setting the final grade in this subject.

Railway Construction

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.

Track Design

In TAS-JEE151 Fundamentals of Track Engineering and in other subjects you learned about the various components from which track is constructed, some of the defects which can occur in those components, and something of the forces generated by a train travelling along a track. In this subject you’ll be delving much deeper into the types of defects which can afflict rails, sleepers, ballast and the track substructure, as well as how to manage those defects and how to mitigate risks of defects interfering with the passage of traffic on a rail line. Those topics naturally lead on then to a detailed study of the interface between trains and track, which happens all within the wheel-rail contact patch. The management of that patch, its effect upon train behaviour and track forces, and the influence of rail and other track defects in the role of the contact patch, comprise the remainder of the subject’s content. This subject has close relationship with TAS-JEE155 Track Design and TAS-JEE154 Track Maintenance and Applications.

Track Defects and Track-Train Interactions

University of Tasmania Civil engineering Short courses | Open Universities Australia

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