Basic Rail Components for Railway Track System

Rail components are made up of the railway track system, including the steel rail, rail joint, tie plate, turnout, rail fastening system and so on. Different rail components play different roles in the railroad tracks.

As an integrated engineering structure, the tracks lay on the rail sleeper, which plays a guiding role in the operation of the train.Besides, the rest rail components like rail fasteners and turnouts should have enough strength and stability to ensure the train runs with a high speed smoothly and safely.

What’s the main role of each rail components? How to choose the suitable rail components? AGICO Rail helps you learn more about rail components.

Steel Rail

 

Steel rail as a part of railroad track, it is crucial for the train’s safety. The steel rail is used to guide the train far forwarding. Meanwhile, the steel rails bear a huge pressure of the train and their loads. So the requirements of the streel rail quality are much higher. steel rail is made of 55Q, Q235B, U71mn, 50mn, 700/900A, etc. How steel rail are made?

How can we choose the tracks? In term of the appearance, there is no big difference. But from the materials, weight, and mode, there are many types for you to choose.
For example, what’s the 40kg/m stands for? That means the steel rail weights 40kg per meter. The bigger the number shows, the greater weight the rail can bear.

In general, the rail types can divide into light rail standard, heavy rail standard, Indian rail standard and so on.

For different countries, the common rail standards are different. There are many international standard of steel, such as AREMA, GB, BS, JIS, UIC, and so on. learn more at steel rail standard. 

Tie Plate

Tie plate, we also called rail base plate or sole plate, which is a kind of rail fasteners. The tie plate is a metal plate which is used on the gap between rails and rail sleepers to fix rails to the rail sleepers.

As track components, tie plates play a big role in the rail fastening system. The tie plate always cooperates with the railroad spike. It can reduce friction between tracks and railway tie. Meanwhile, the tie plate protects rail sleepers from immoderate wear thereby prolongs the service life of rails and rail sleepers.

As a railway component manufacturer, AGICO Rail produces tie plates by forging, rolling or casting. These tie plates are available for various rail sleepers like wooden, concrete sleepers. For different rail tracks, there are many tie plates for you to choose, easpecially AREMA standard tie plate. 

Generally, tie plates can be classified single shoulder tie plate or double shoulder tie plate. Besides, there are hook twin tie plate for railway switch. 

Rail joint

Rail joint is also called fish plate and rail joint bar. The rail joint is used to connect two rails together. As a joint, railway fish plate plays a big role in the railway system.
First, rail joints guarantee the continuity and steadiness of the train. In another hand, the rail joints bear an enormous pressure when the trains pass away. So the requirements of the quality are much higher. A quality rail joint can broadly reduce the impact of trains to rail tracks.

AGICO Rail provides much more types high-quality common rail joints, insulated rail joint, comprising rail joint, including AREMA 115 and 132 rail joint bar, UIC 54 and 60 joint bar. For GB standard steel rail, there are three categories:
Rail joint for light rail: 8kg, 9kg, 12kg, 15kg, 18kg, 22kg, 24kg and 30kg.
Rail joint for heavy rail: 38kg, 43kg, 50kg, and 60kg.
Rail joints for crane rail: QU70, QU80, QU100 and QU120.

Railway switch

Railways switch is also called turnout, which is a mechanical installation enabling the trains to be guided from one line to another line. Due to the special position, railway switch is a weak link of the rails. Railway switch can show the carrying capacity of the railway channel fully. When a train needs to change to another channel, workers manipulate the rudder to move the pointed rails to another channel so that achieves the purpose.The railway switch has many types, including single turnout, equilateral turnout, three-way turnout and slip switch.

In term of the single turnout, the single turnout is made up of the switch, frog, guide rails and connections. The main line is the straight line and the side line from the main line to the left or right.
The equilateral turnout is like a character “Y”, the two channels connected to both sides of the bifurcation.

Above all, we have introduced four rail components to you. All these rail components are crucial to the rail tracks, not only these mentioned, but rail clip, rail pad, and some rail components are not mentioned. AGICO Rail as a manufacturer, all these products we support custom service and free sample. Welcome to your inquiry!