Abstract: With the rapid development of railway and the increasing demand for safe and efficient training, simulation training based on virtual reality technology has become an important means of training railway skilled personnel. Taking the maintenance of catenary as an example, according to the functional requirements and the characteristics of different virtual reality development modes, this paper choose 3dsMax and Unity3D as development tools to construct a virtual operation environment for catenary maintenance, implement three operation modes of catenary operation flow simulation and teaching, practice and examination. It achieves a higher level of training simulation, provides a new means for training catenary maintenance skilled personnel.