Railway Planning

For many years now card_1 has been setting the benchmark in railway planning. Whether main lines or industrial railways, underground lines, or tramways – card_1 leads the way. The regulations governing the various railways systems are fully integrated throughout the system to assist you while planning and to automatically guarantee the correct layout of all plans and lists.

And the best part is: you can use card_1 to plan railways world-wide, as all of the routing elements used internationally are available. You can also add local switch models to the integrated switch library.

card_1 starts checking the vehicle-dynamics parameters during the design phase. This allows you to plan more quickly and reliably; as all of the route parameters (radii, transition curves, cant gradients, cants and vertical alignments) are calculated within the permitted value limits which you determine beforehand by selecting e.g. Ril 800.0110 of the German Federal Railways or B50 of the Austrian Federal Railways. Single switches or complex switch connections are automatically calculated based on horizontal and vertical alignment data. Bending a switch into a similar flexure switch, a contrary flexure switch or into a switch with increasing through track curvature is no problem at all. card_1 does that for you.

Naturally you can also determine all elements of the rail cross-section. A virtual route structure can be composed from the cross-sections, moulding perfectly into the existing terrain according to your definitions. That's the basic of BIM. Once you have defined the planned route, there are no limitations as to how to produce the results.

The highly automated card_1 generates base maps, profile/cross-section drawings, list outputs, volumetric calculations and much more, all according to the relevant guidelines. And, if you wish, you can run our simulation applications to view the planned route from the train driver's perspective: it's totally realistic, allowing you to check platforms, catenary poles and signals.

You can also use the card_1 Platform Generator to create parameterized outer and central platforms. As a result, you not only get an attributed 3D model, but also cross-section and topography data from which any drawings can be created. Furthermore, an interface to Revit has been integrated into the Platform Generator in order to use the Revit families from DB InfraGO AG. In order to design your platform in a local, distortion-free coordinate system, card_1 offers you the option of transforming your coordinates from the global DB_REF system into the local, distortion-free VA system of DB InfraGO AG.

Top Features:

  • Track routing, using horizontal and vertical alignment as well as cross-section data with all transition curves (also available: routing, where the centroid is specifically taken into account as used by the Austrian Federal Railways ÖBB with its "Viennese Curve/Wiener Bogen")
  • Vehicle-dynamics checks during the design phase
  • Switch library with automatic switch calculation
  • Automatic optimization of existing routes based on horizontal and vertical alignment data from measured track points; automatic generation of alignment displacement plans
  • Volumetric calculations, calculation according to REB, earth volume distribution diagrams, digital terrain model
  • 3D data model for BIM
  • Automatic generation of finished plans and drawings, the symbols and annotations conforming with guidelines and technical specifications and the rail-specific font type
  • Route plans, switch elevation plans as well as other plans required when designing track routes
  • Route simulation for virtual journeys on the designed routes
  • Data exchange with ASCIBAHN, VERM.ESN, GND-Edit, Microstation (DGN), AutoCAD (DXF/DWG), CPIXML, LandXML and other specialist applications of the Federal German Railways
  • Network adjustment officially certified by the Federal German Railways
  • Transformations: DB_REF <-> UTM, DB_REF <-> VA-system

card_1 has been one of the leading software system for railway planning since 1992. Numerous routes of the Federal German Railways and similar regional networks are planned using card_1.