RAD ACADEMY / ENGINEERING WORKFLOW

From corridor to a reviewable railway.

Learn the workflow with application images, precise notations, guided exercises and facilitator notes. 50–60 minute teaching module + guided exercise. 23 editable slides · 13 October 2026.

Use a sample. Keep the evidence.

Open a built-in sample in the designer, follow the lessons, and complete the review-package exercise. The PowerPoint includes speaker notes and answer guidance. It opens in PowerPoint, Keynote or LibreOffice; narration can be recorded using your presentation application's recording controls.

The illustrated projects are demonstrations. Confirm governing standards, survey data, contract formats and authorisations before using outputs on a real project.

  1. From corridor to a reviewable railway
  2. A defensible sequence
  3. Navigate without losing your place
  4. Establish the design basis
  5. Route the corridor and preserve alternatives
  6. Read a plan as engineering evidence
  7. Read the profile with the ground
  8. Notations that prevent a costly mistake
  9. Turn a finding into a reviewed decision
  10. Crossings and bridges: retain the unknowns
  11. Read the GAD at the stated scale
  12. Build a traceable detailed estimate
  13. Measurement, rate and saved snapshot
  14. CAD drafting for railway details
  15. Insert a reusable railway component
  16. Read the drawing import report
  17. Tell the project story in PowerPoint
  18. Choose a coordinated document layout
  19. Tender schedules and the EPC draft
  20. Save, reopen and exchange
  21. Guided exercise: a review package
  22. Knowledge check
  23. A practical handover checklist

01 / START · 01

From corridor to a reviewable railway

Application demonstration: From corridor to a reviewable railway
Demonstration data. Earlier captures can have different toolbar positions.

Outcome: save a .rads project and explain one design decision.

Trainer notes and exercise guidance

Trainer: allow 2 minutes. Open the designer and a built-in sample before the session. Ask learners what evidence they need to recommend a route. This module is software training, not railway design certification. Screenshots show actual application workflows; older images can have different toolbar layouts. Use the current command labels in the written steps.

01 / START · 02

A defensible sequence

Application demonstration: A defensible sequence
Demonstration data. Earlier captures can have different toolbar positions.

Discuss: a green check is evidence of which rule, at which limit?

Trainer notes and exercise guidance

Allow 2 minutes. Walk through the stage prerequisites. A compliant calculation is not an approved railway scheme. A missing input cannot be treated as a zero. Distinguish completed software stages from independently approved surveys, clearances and financial decisions.

02 / WORKSPACE · 03

Navigate without losing your place

Application demonstration: Navigate without losing your place
Demonstration data. Earlier captures can have different toolbar positions.

Locate Plan, Profile, Output and Save in the current workspace.

Trainer notes and exercise guidance

Allow 2 minutes. Point out the grouped commands in the screenshot, then demonstrate their current positions in the running app. Activity may be indeterminate when an upstream service cannot report a percentage. Do not start the same long operation repeatedly while a request is progressing.

03 / GEOMETRY · 04

Establish the design basis

Application demonstration: Establish the design basis
Demonstration data. Earlier captures can have different toolbar positions.

Write down your chosen speed, gauge and ruling gradient.

Trainer notes and exercise guidance

Allow 2 minutes. Open the design limits and show a normal and exceptional limit. Presets are editable starting points. Note that changing a preset may affect derived checks. Confirm units: radius and chainage in metres, speed in km/h, cant in mm, gradient in percent.

03 / GEOMETRY · 05

Route the corridor and preserve alternatives

Application demonstration: Route the corridor and preserve alternatives
Demonstration data. Earlier captures can have different toolbar positions.

Identify one constraint that could change the preferred route.

Trainer notes and exercise guidance

Allow 3 minutes. Demonstrate the route workflow with an existing sample so the lesson does not depend on live terrain queries. The older screenshot illustrates a route result and is not evidence that a live service is currently available. Explain why a route can need more development length to achieve the ruling gradient.

03 / GEOMETRY · 06

Read a plan as engineering evidence

Application demonstration: Read a plan as engineering evidence
Demonstration data. Earlier captures can have different toolbar positions.

Explain why a curve can pass radius yet fail another check.

Trainer notes and exercise guidance

Allow 2 minutes. Ask learners to identify a curve and its transition points. Do not equate the design speed with a permitted operating speed. Cant excess on slower traffic and transition comfort criteria can govern even when the radius seems adequate.

03 / GEOMETRY · 07

Read the profile with the ground

Application demonstration: Read the profile with the ground
Demonstration data. Earlier captures can have different toolbar positions.

Find one reach where a profile adjustment changes the works.

Trainer notes and exercise guidance

Allow 3 minutes. Read a summit or sag, explain VIP and BVC/EVC terminology, and identify the ground profile. A straight line over a missing terrain interval does not create surveyed ground. Check station grades and structure clearances after vertical changes.

03 / GEOMETRY · 08

Notations that prevent a costly mistake

Explanatory diagram: Notations that prevent a costly mistake
Explanatory notation diagram. Schematic, not to scale.

Check: what is 7+250 in metres, and what is 1 in 80 as a percent?

Trainer notes and exercise guidance

Allow 2 minutes. Answers: 7,250 m and 1.25%. Distinguish track gauge from dynamic gauge G in the equilibrium cant equation. A diagram is schematic unless it states a scale. In railway documents always give the unit with a quantity. The project may begin at a nonzero chainage; chainage is not automatically distance from its first point.

04 / ASSURANCE · 09

Turn a finding into a reviewed decision

Application demonstration: Turn a finding into a reviewed decision
Demonstration data. Earlier captures can have different toolbar positions.

Choose one finding and describe a repair plus its side effects.

Trainer notes and exercise guidance

Allow 3 minutes. A repair that resolves one rule can worsen another, so rerun the complete checks. Strict mode and project overrides can change the presentation of severity. Review the override register before using a clean report as evidence.

04 / ASSURANCE · 10

Crossings and bridges: retain the unknowns

Application demonstration: Crossings and bridges: retain the unknowns
Demonstration data. Earlier captures can have different toolbar positions.

Name one dimension that requires survey or structural design.

Trainer notes and exercise guidance

Allow 3 minutes. A generated bridge arrangement is preliminary geometry. Demonstrate how a changed wall or span appears in linked views. Do not describe mapped obstacle levels or proposed support sizes as approved design inputs.

04 / ASSURANCE · 11

Read the GAD at the stated scale

Application demonstration: Read the GAD at the stated scale
Demonstration data. Earlier captures can have different toolbar positions.

Explain why fitting a drawing to A4 changes its plotted scale.

Trainer notes and exercise guidance

Allow 2 minutes. The screenshot shows the visible portion of an A1 preview, not a complete structural calculation. Drawing dimensions remain numerical facts; a scaled measurement is only valid at the specified print size. Export a reviewed sheet for the class to inspect.

05 / COST · 12

Build a traceable detailed estimate

Application demonstration: Build a traceable detailed estimate
Demonstration data. Earlier captures can have different toolbar positions.

Find one cost item and trace its quantity back to a measurement.

Trainer notes and exercise guidance

Allow 3 minutes. Explain a component, a plan head and a bill item using the visible editor. The imported or detailed bill is a saved snapshot; changing the alignment does not automatically certify or reconcile every measured quantity. Review charges and GST separately.

05 / COST · 13

Measurement, rate and saved snapshot

Application demonstration: Measurement, rate and saved snapshot
Demonstration data. Earlier captures can have different toolbar positions.

Demonstrate the difference between an editor draft and the saved project.

Trainer notes and exercise guidance

Allow 2 minutes. Ask learners to calculate one simple row independently. A rate source is not a locally approved price. Explain that exporting the editor draft can differ from a report built from the applied project snapshot. Check the save destination and date.

06 / DELIVERABLES · 14

CAD drafting for railway details

Application demonstration: CAD drafting for railway details
Demonstration data. Earlier captures can have different toolbar positions.

Inspect the inserted platform, its layers and the two checked dimensions.

Trainer notes and exercise guidance

Allow 3 minutes. The actual editor shows a 300 m by 10 m island-platform schematic at 20° rotation. Its dedicated geometry and annotation layers remain editable. CAD supports annotations, layout development and exchange; drawing entities do not change the solved railway alignment or its quantities. Save project retains the drawing. Import DXF / DWG is explained in the next lessons.

06 / DELIVERABLES · 15

Insert a reusable railway component

Application demonstration: Insert a reusable railway component
Demonstration data. Earlier captures can have different toolbar positions.

Insert a 300 × 10 m island platform at 20°, then verify its dimensions.

Trainer notes and exercise guidance

Allow 3 minutes. Search by component or filter a family. The preview is regenerated from parameter values and extents include annotations. Geometry is in metres; gauge fields use labelled millimetres and paper frames use an explicit 1:N scale. Each insertion is independent editable geometry, not a linked block or live engineered model. Turnouts are schematic rays, clearance envelopes are user studies, and structural outlines are not capacity calculations. Complete the applicable design before adopting a drawing.

06 / DELIVERABLES · 16

Read the drawing import report

Application demonstration: Read the drawing import report
Demonstration data. Earlier captures can have different toolbar positions.

Explain why “no skipped entities” is not a guarantee of identical drawings.

Trainer notes and exercise guidance

Allow 2 minutes. This actual local DWG import expanded three INSERT references and reported sheared and mirrored text approximations. Conversion occurs in the packaged WebAssembly adapter. Supported planar ellipses, splines and hatch loops can remain editable; nested blocks, arrays, dimension graphics and multiline text are flattened. Block and dimension associations are not retained. Three-dimensional solids, meshes, external references and proxy objects are outside the editing model. Conversion warnings and font/layout differences still require review when no entities are skipped.

06 / DELIVERABLES · 17

Tell the project story in PowerPoint

Application demonstration: Tell the project story in PowerPoint
Demonstration data. Earlier captures can have different toolbar positions.

Prepare a two-minute recommendation and one explicit decision request.

Trainer notes and exercise guidance

Allow 3 minutes. The project deck is a technical review starting point, not a claim of a prescribed Indian Railways PEC template or sanction. Confirm every exported figure matches the adopted alternative and cost basis. Add scheme-specific approvals, financing and economics where they are not in the model.

06 / DELIVERABLES · 18

Choose a coordinated document layout

Application demonstration: Choose a coordinated document layout
Demonstration data. Earlier captures can have different toolbar positions.

Export two layouts and compare one route quantity and one cost figure.

Trainer notes and exercise guidance

Allow 2 minutes. Railway corporate, Executive review, Infrastructure delivery, Landscape and sustainability, Technical submission, and Print and tender change the applicable covers, headings, tables and infographic treatment. Feasibility and DPR offer Word or PDF in the publication dialog. EPC is Word; tender schedules are Excel with coordinated typography and palette. The selector retains its choice while that dialog remains open, then defaults to Railway corporate next time. It is not a saved project preference. The miniature preview is illustrative and does not contain the project’s quantities. The exports remain review documents requiring the same evidence and completion regardless of layout.

06 / DELIVERABLES · 19

Tender schedules and the EPC draft

Application demonstration: Tender schedules and the EPC draft
Demonstration data. Earlier captures can have different toolbar positions.

List three tender particulars that cannot be inferred from an alignment.

Trainer notes and exercise guidance

Allow 3 minutes. Examples include employer identity, completion period, securities, eligibility, payment terms and adopted contract conditions. An automatically prepared workbook or Word document is an editable draft. The chosen zonal tender and contract documents govern; verify schedule lettering and prescribed formats for the actual invitation.

07 / PRACTICE · 20

Save, reopen and exchange

Application demonstration: Save, reopen and exchange
Demonstration data. Earlier captures can have different toolbar positions.

Reopen your saved project before handing it to a reviewer.

Trainer notes and exercise guidance

Allow 2 minutes. Desktop file icons come from the installed operating-system association; a project file cannot force a custom icon on an unconfigured machine. Mac and Windows keyboard shortcuts differ. A file export is distinct from a cloud save. Keep a dated backup before material revisions.

07 / PRACTICE · 21

Guided exercise: a review package

Application demonstration: Guided exercise: a review package
Demonstration data. Earlier captures can have different toolbar positions.

Deliver: .rads + PPTX + schedules XLSX + EPC DOCX + decision note.

Trainer notes and exercise guidance

Allow 5 to 10 minutes as a separate exercise after the teaching module if required. Use demonstration data and label all outputs training. Assessment: can another engineer trace the route, quantities, assumptions and missing approvals? Review shared outputs before describing them as ready for an employer.

08 / CHECK · 22

Knowledge check

Answer all three, and explain what review remains necessary.

Trainer notes and exercise guidance

Allow 2 minutes. Answers: no, no, no. A compliance report applies the configured rules and cannot replace scheme approval. A saved bill may be a fixed snapshot and needs deliberate revision. Employer and tender-specific conditions require authorised completion and review. Discuss a useful next check for each case.

08 / CHECK · 23

A practical handover checklist

Application demonstration: A practical handover checklist
Demonstration data. Earlier captures can have different toolbar positions.

Continue: the live manual has figures, notations and Print / save as PDF.

Trainer notes and exercise guidance

Allow 1 minute. The manual page is the maintained source. PDF is generated from that page at print time; retain the edition and date with a review package. Use the trainer notes and exercise as a repeatable onboarding session. Ask each learner to name one issue they will verify on their next project.