Various Types of Railway Rail Fasteners

Rail fasteners include spikes, under-rail pads, and elastic or rigid fasteners. The fastener should be able to maintain the reliable connection between the rail and the sleeper for a long time and effectively, and can give full play to its cushioning and shock absorption performance under the action of dynamics, and delay the accumulation of residual deformation of the track. Therefore, it is required that it should have sufficient strength, durability, and certain flexibility, and it should be simple in structure and easy to install and disassemble. In addition, for prestressed concrete sleepers, the fasteners should also have sufficient buckling force, gauge, and level adjustment. The connecting parts on the wooden sleeper track are used to connect the steel rail and the wooden sleeper. According to the relationship between the connecting rails, pads, and wooden sleepers, it can be divided into separate and mixed types.

Separate rail fasteners(Divided rail fasteners) separate the bolts or spikes that fix the rail and the iron tie plate. Generally, rail spikes are used to fix the iron tie plate on the sleeper. The iron tie plate has a rail-supporting groove, and the bolts that fix the rail are installed on the iron tie plate, and then the rail is fixed with a spring clip or a pinch plate.

Mixed rail fasteners are composed of iron pads and spikes. Use hook-head spikes (square) to directly connect the rails with iron pads and sleepers. The buckling force is small, and more anti-climbing equipment is required to prevent the rail from clamping longitudinally. The connecting parts on the concrete sleeper track are used to connect the steel rail and the concrete sleeper.

Due to the characteristics of the large weight and high rigidity, concrete sleepers have higher requirements on the performance of fasteners and have strict requirements on their buckling force, elasticity, and adjustability. Concrete sleeper fasteners can be divided into elastic clip fasteners, pinch plate fasteners, and blade fasteners according to their structures; according to the elasticity of the fasteners, they can be divided into rigid fasteners and elastic fasteners; according to whether the concrete sleepers have shoulders, they can be divided into shoulder fasteners and non-shoulder fasteners. In the initial stage, China's concrete sleeper fasteners mainly used two types: pinch plate and blades. Arch-shaped blade-type fasteners are no longer used on Chinese railways because of the low strength of the arch-shaped fastener, which is easy to cause residual deformation and even break.
Due to the use of pinch plates as buckling parts, pinch plate fasteners have insufficient elasticity and low buckling pressure and are easy to loosen during use. At present, they have been gradually replaced by elastic clip fasteners on Chinese railways.

Elastic clip fasteners use the elastic clips as fastening parts, using the bending and torsion deformation of the material, and there is no weakening of the cross-section, and the structure is relatively reasonable. Therefore, it has become the main type fastener of China's concrete sleeper track.