A full guide of rail track and rail joint bar

How much do you know about rail track and rail joint bar? Rail track and rail joint bar are two main parts of railway track system. Rail track provides the basic construction of railway line, rail joint is used to connect the rails together with various railroad fasteners like railroad spike, rail clips, rail track bolt and nuts, rail pad, rail anchor, and other rail fastenings.

Rail track

As the core components of railway track, rail track has plenty of types according to different standards, such as AREMA, BS, UIC, GB, JIS, DIN, and etc. Chinese standard rail track is named by the weight per meters, including 38kg, 43kg, 50kg, 75kg, and etc. 

Functions

• Provide continuous, smooth and low-resistance rolling surface for wheel, guide the train to move forward.
• Bear huge vertical pressure from wheel and transfer the load to the railway sleepers.
• Provide the conductor for track circuit.

Materials of rail track

Rail material means the chemical composition and metallographic structure of rail track. To ensure the high reliability of rail track, the premise is high purity and reasonable chemical component of material. The quality problems of rail track are fatigue damage mostly caused by inclusions, flaw of rail track. So improving the purity of rail track is one of the effective ways to reduce fatigue damage, increase reliability and prolog the service life of rails.
The rail track is mainly made up of carbon and ferrum. Each chemical element stands for one kind of property. To be specific, C stand for strength of extension, Mn stand for strength and tenacity, Si stand for density, P stand for cold brittleness, S stand for hot brittleness.

Rail joint bar

Rail joint bar, also known as railway fish plates, is used to connect two rail tracks into a continuous railway line. Related fasteners of rail connection include rail joint bar, fish bolts, rail nuts, spring washer.  
According to the functions, rail joint bar can be divided into common rail joint bar, compromise rail joint bar, conductor-rail bond, glued insulation rail joint, expansion rail joint and welded joint. 

• The compromise rail joint is used to connect two types of rail tracks.
• Insulated rail joint bar is generally applied to the automatic block district, cut off the electricity.
• Expansion joint bar is also called rail expansion device, including stock rail and switch rail. Switch rail is fixed and stock rail extend outward, which maintain the rail gauge.
• Due to the rusting of surface of rail track and railway fish plate, resistance of rail connection is large. For reducing the current loss of track circuit, set electric lead on the end of rail track. Currently, conductive contact is connected by the welding to avoid the fatigue strength.
• As a weak link of railway track system, rail joint can keep the track geometry, but to some extent it breaks the continuousness of rail track, which shows in the rai gap, step and bevel. 

Buy rail track and rail join bar from trusted manufacturer

AGICO Rail is a top rail fasteners provider from China, we supply various railway fasteners like railway fish plate, railroad spike, rail clips, track bolts and nuts, rail tie plates, and etc. Our products are all ISO 9001:2008 and SGS certified, and had been exported to a lot of countries worldwide. With advanced technology and large production capacity, we can produce AREMA, BS, UIC, DIN, GB, and other international standard rail products, besides, non-standard are available.