Rail to Rail Fastenings

Introduction

The purpose of providing fittings and fastenings in railway tracks is to hold the rails in their proper position in order to ensure the smooth running of trains. These fittings and fastenings are used for joining rails together as well as fixing them to the sleepers, and they serve their purpose so well that the level, alignment, and gauge of the railway track are maintained within permissible limits even during the passage of trains. The important fittings and fastenings commonly used in India are listed in Table 10.1.

The number of various fittings and fastenings required per sleeper for ordinary or conventional fastening as well as elastic fastening for different types of sleepers are summarized in Table 10.2.

Rail-to-Rail Fastenings

Rail-to-rail fastenings involve the use of fish plates and bolts for joining rails in series. Detailed descriptions of these are given in the following sections.

1 Fish Plates

The name 'fish plate' derives from the fish-shaped section of this fitting (Fig. 10.1). The function of a fish plate is to hold two rails together in both the horizontal and vertical planes. Fish plates are manufactured using a special type of steel (Indian Railways specification T-1/57) with composition given below:

Carbon: 0.30-0.42% Manganese: not more than 0.6% Silicon: not more than 0.15%

Sulphur and phosphorous: not more than 0.06%

The steel used for fish plates should have a minimum tensile strength of 5.58 to 6.51 t/cm² with a minimum elongation of 20%. Fish plates are designed to have roughly the same strength as the rail section, and as such the section area of two fish plates connecting the rail ends is kept about the same as that of the rail section. As fish plates do not go as deep as the rail, the strength of a pair of fish plates is less than that of the rail section, about 55%, when only vertical bending is taken into consideration. Fish plates are so designed that the fishing angles at the top and bottom surface coincide with those of the rail section so as to allow perfect contact with the rail as shown in Fig. 10.2. The details of standard fish plates used on Indian Railways for different rail sections are given in Table 10.3.

2 Combination Fish Plates

Combination or junction fish plates (Fig. 10.3) are used to connect rails of two differential sections. These are designed to cover the rail section at either end adequately up to the point in the centre where the rail section changes. Another design feature in these junction fish plates is the elimination of the expansion gap in order to give them more strength. In spite of the varying depths of the combination fish plates used in the fitting of 52 kg/90 R, 90 R/75 R, 75 R/60 R, etc. rail sections, the use of junction fish plates provides a common top table for the two rail sections they join. A uniform system of marking and exact nomenclature is adopted for each junction fish plate for proper identification. Fish plates are marked right in, right out, left in, and left out depending upon their position with respect to the direction from the lighter rail to the heavier rail (as shown in Fig. 10.4). In the case of any difficulty in obtaining a combination fish plate, the following alternate arrangement can be made.

1.  First the composite rail, normally of a length not less than 4 m, is prepared by welding together two rail pieces of different rail sections.

2.  This composite rail piece is then inserted at the joint in lieu of the combination fish plate.

3.  Normal fish plates are then used to join the composite rail piece to the rail lengths on either side, which have a rail section identical to that of the composite rail piece.