Construction practical competence is not only a core element of engineering education, but also an important support for consolidating professional skills and connecting theory with practice. To achieve the goals of engineering education in cultivating high-quality engineering talents and promoting engineering technology innovation, it is crucial to strengthen the cultivation of students' construction practical competence. At present, there are obvious deficiencies in the cultivation mode of construction practical competence for transportation and civil engineering students, which are reflected in the simplex internship teaching methods, the limited functions of practical bases that fail to meet the demands, the inadequate connection of the training system and the frequent changes of supervising teachers. In response to these deficiencies, a whole-chain cultivation mode for construction practical competence of transportation and civil engineering students is proposed. Combined with the actual internship situation of the Railway Engineering major at East China Jiaotong University, this paper explores and studies the mode from three aspects: the "relay-style" guidance of practical courses by teachers, the "collaborative" construction of the cultivation system through platforms, and the "chain-oriented" cultivation of students' construction practical competence. The accumulated experience can provide a reference for the internship of transportation and civil engineering majors in other universities, and also offer a new idea for improving the cultivation of students' construction practical competence.