LXRP Rail Academy: redesigning rail education for the next generation

The Level Crossing Removal Project (LXRP) is one of the largest rail infrastructure programs in Victoria’s history, removing 110 level crossings across Melbourne by 2032. Through its Rail Academy, LXRP supports the Certificate II in Rail Fundamentals — a VET in Schools program giving secondary students an immersive preview of careers across Victoria’s heavy and light rail network.

Victoria faces a forecast skills shortage across the rail industry over the next decade. The existing Certificate II program had real strengths, live rail site access, industry guest speakers, and world-class facilities, but the learning materials weren’t keeping pace with what students actually wanted. Learner feedback was clear: they came for the tracks and trains, wanted hands-on experience from day one, and found the existing materials flat by comparison.

LXRP needed a redesign that would take two years of complex, unit-mapped curriculum and turn it into something young learners would genuinely want to show up for, without compromising the rigour of an accredited qualification.

We started where good learning design always starts: with what learners told us. A dedicated discovery phase surfaced real student feedback that informed every design decision, from assessment formats to activity sequencing to visual design.
The learning architecture was rebuilt from the ground up with a deliberate sequencing strategy: front-load Year 1 with the content students came for, then build toward career readiness in Year 2. The goal was retention through excitement, get students hooked on the real thing early, then give them the tools to turn that interest into a career pathway.

The hero learning activities reflect this thinking across both years. Year 1 takes students to maintenance depots, signalboxes, Southern Cross Station, and the Rail Academy Newport. Year 2 places students behind the controls of Metro Academy’s X’Trapolis cab train simulator, on the platform at Flinders Street practising real PA announcements, and inside the Metro Tunnel Operational Control Centre. These are not field trips bolted onto a course, they are the spine of the learning, sequenced deliberately to build knowledge and make rail feel like somewhere a young person belongs.

Across the full materials suite, assessment design was also rethought. Video presentations replace traditional stand-up formats where appropriate, giving students more ways to demonstrate what they know. All materials were developed within a consistent visual template aligned to the Rail Academy brand.

The redesigned Certificate II in Rail Fundamentals is a two-year program that looks and feels nothing like a standard VET course. A consistent, Rail Academy-branded design system runs across every touchpoint, giving the program a professional, cohesive identity from day one.

As the program rolls out in 2026, LXRP has a qualification that matches the scale and ambition of Victoria’s Big Build, and learning materials designed to bring the next generation of rail workers along for the ride.