Mumbai University > Civil Engineering > Sem 5 > Transportation Engineering 1

Marks: 4M

Year: May 2016

Fixtures and Fastening:-

1. The arrangement required for connecting the rail end together and for fixing rails to sleepers in a track is called as fixtures and fastening.
2. The railway track is made permanently fix with sleepers. The rail which are fix permanently with each other and the fitting required for this is known as fixtures. And the arrangement which is just required for securing connections between rails and sleepers and rail are known as fastening.

Elements of Fixtures:-

1) Fish plates

2) Bearing plates

3) Chairs

Elements of Fastening:-

1) Spikes

2) Bolts

3) Keys

Fish plates:-

1. The plates which are used to join one rail with other rail to maintain continuity of rails in a track are known as fish plates.
2. These are 456 mm long and 20mm thick plates, having 32mm holes at 114mm center to center.
3. At every rail joint, two fish plates on either side are provided. They are fixed together with the help of fish bolts which are passing though the web holes. These web holes are drilled slightly bigger for expansion and contraction of rails.

Bearing plate:-

1. These are the plates which are provided in between the flat footed rails and wooden sleepers. These are made up of either steel, cast iron etc.

Spikes:-

Spike are used to fix rails, bearing plates or chairs to the wooden sleepers.

Types of spikes:

1) Dog spikes 2) Screw spike 3) Round spike 4) Elastic spike

Bolts:-

Bolts are used for connecting fish plates to the rails at rail joint, bearing plates and chairs to wooden sleepers etc. The different and important types of bolts are described as below:-

1) Fish bolt 2) hook bolt 3) fang bolt

Keys:-

Keys are small tapered pieces of timbers and steel used for fixing rails to sleepers.

Types of keys:

1) Wooden keys

2) Metal keys