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Welded joints. An improvement over fishplate rail connectors is directly bonding rails together using thermite welding. In 1967, the Hither Green rail crash occurred on the Southern Region of British Railways when a rail fractured at its fishplate joint.
The earliest iron rails were joined by a simple fishplate or bar of metal bolted through the web of the rail. Stronger methods of joining two rails together have been developed. When sufficient metal is put into the rail joint, the joint is almost as strong as the rest of the rail length.
Long welded rail was hard to install manually. An early demonstration of mechanised track-laying with two 600 ft (180 m) lengths of long welded rail took place on the Fighting Cocks branch in 1958. The two lengths were loaded on ten wagons, attached to the existing track by a steel rope and drawn back at 30 ft (9.1 m) a minute.
Rails can be supplied pre-drilled with boltholes for fishplates or without where they will be welded into place. There are usually two or three boltholes at each end. Joining rails. Rails are produced in fixed lengths and need to be joined end-to-end to make a continuous surface on which trains may run.
The rails of the Caillet monorail were laid directly on the ground on small support plates that were hooked to the inside of the rail. They were screwed together with fishplate tabs. Although there was only one rail, the lorries could each have two or four wheels in a row, all in line.
Grooved rail, used when track is laid in places traversed by other vehicles or pedestrians. A grooved rail, groove rail, or girder rail is a special rail with a groove designed for tramway or railway track in pavement or grassed surfaces (grassed track or track in a lawn). The head on the right-hand side of the rail bears the vehicle's weight.
A breather switch, expansion joint, or adjustment switch is an intentional gap in railway tracks to allow for thermal expansion in long sections of otherwise unbroken rail. They are placed between very long sections of continuous welded rail or at the transition from continuous welded rail to jointed track, and commonly in the vicinity of ...
Stressing is a rail engineering process. It is used to prevent heat and cold tension after installation of continuous welded rail (CWR). Environmental heat causes CWR to expand and therefore can cause the fixed track to buckle. Environmental cold can lead to the contraction of the fixed railway track causing brittleness and cracks.
A rail fastening system is a means of fixing rails to railroad ties (North America) or sleepers (British Isles, Australasia, and Africa). The terms rail anchors, tie plates, chairs and track fasteners are used to refer to parts or all of a rail fastening system.
Concrete sleepers are up to 300 pounds (136.1 kg) heavier than their wooden counterparts. As a result, larger sized ballast is required to both support and hold in place the sleepers on the roadbed. Additionally, they do not absorb as much vibration from passing trains as wooden sleepers do.