Rail corridors carry the strictest clearance, geometry and asset-condition tolerances of any infrastructure type. Drone LiDAR captures the corridor, the track, the structures and the surrounding land in a single pass — engineered for kinematic gauging, OHL clearance, structure-deflection trending and the short possession windows that rail work actually runs in.
Step between at-grade, overbridge and tunnel sections; toggle the static gauge, kinematic gauge and infringement check. The captured structure is the same dataset in every view — the gauging is the operator's envelope laid on top.
Overbridge. Road-over-rail bridge with reinforced concrete deck on masonry abutments. Soffit clearance to rail head is the controlling dimension; an aged drainage pipe protrudes from the deck soffit into the kinematic envelope. Clearance verified against the operator's kinematic envelope — no field-tape required.
Rail-corridor data is hard to keep current. Track time is rare, track-mounted survey is slow, and the spaces between formal surveys are filled with assumption. The operational and safety cost of that assumption is significant.
Track-mounted survey cars run during planned possessions. Booking the track, mobilising the equipment and processing the result is a multi-week cycle for what may be a single capture pass.
Spot-measuring clearance at suspect structures is achievable; gauging an entire route is not. Most networks rely on legacy clearance drawings updated case-by-case as work happens.
Rail vegetation clearance is tighter than road, and growth between annual patrols routinely crosses the envelope. Lineside fires and overhead damage are downstream consequences.
Bridge deflection, tunnel deformation and platform-edge movement need period-on-period comparisons. Without a fast, repeatable capture method, trending happens in years not seasons.
Captured from above the corridor in segregated airspace, a drone LiDAR pass produces the dataset that gauging, asset registers, possession planning and structural trending all need — without booking track time and without crew in the corridor.
Rail-head capture to ±15 mm along the centreline. Track geometry, cant and superelevation derived directly — the inputs design and maintenance teams need.
Captured structure cloud differenced against the operator's kinematic envelope — every infringement flagged span by span with location, severity and recommended action.
Soffit clearances, tunnel profile, platform-edge offset and station-overhang dimensions all extractable from a single capture. No structure-by-structure tape work.
Contact wire, catenary and structure geometry captured in the same pass on electrified corridors — for clearance to conductor and adjacent structure compliance.
Vegetation breach detection against rail-specific clearance — span-by-span, work-orderable, audit-defensible.
Drone capture happens from outside the corridor — no track booking required. Periodic re-captures fit inside maintenance reporting cycles rather than competing with them.
Formatted for direct use in ProRail, Bentley OpenRail, 12d Rail, AutoCAD Map 3D and the engineering and asset-management systems Australian rail operators run.
Centreline string, gauge profile, cant and superelevation along chainage — engineered for design and tamping inputs.
Per-span gauge infringement register with location, severity, structure / fixture reference and recommended action.
Cross-sections at every overbridge, tunnel and station with soffit, springing and platform-edge dimensions called out.
Rail, sleeper, ballast, structure, OHL/OLE, vegetation and ground classified — for downstream engineering workflows.
Spans with vegetation in the rail-clearance envelope, ranked by severity with dominant species and recommended work zone.
Track-geometry drift, structure deflection and platform-edge movement between captures — for trending and maintenance planning.
Confirm corridor, possession constraints, gauging spec, OHL/OLE scope and AHD/MGA control with network owner and design team.
CASA permits, airspace and network-operator coordination, lineside notifications. Linear flight along the corridor from outside the rail boundary.
Track geometry extraction, structure cross-sectioning, kinematic gauging against the operator's envelope, vegetation clearance compute. QA pass.
Engineering and gauging packs landed with design / maintenance teams. Re-capture cadence aligned to possession windows and reporting cycles.
We work with metropolitan and regional rail operators, design consultants and maintenance contractors across Australia. Tell us the corridor, the gauging spec and the possession window — we'll scope a capture programme that fits the operating schedule.