19. Non-screw plate-shaped spring clip rail fastening method

In Japan, a commonly used and well-established plate-shaped spring clip rail fastening system is the screw type, which secures the rail by tightening a plate-shaped spring clip with bolts. This fastening system requires regular inspection for loose bolts and retightening if necessary.
On the other hand, non-screw rail fastening systems that do not use bolts, such as bar-shaped spring clips, are also used.
However, these require replacing the existing sleepers with ones compatible with the non-screw system.
To address this, we devised a method to convert the screw system to a non-screw system without replacing the existing sleepers. This involves replacing the members of the plate-shaped spring clip rail fastening system with a specialized plate-shaped spring clip, a fixing bolt, and a fastening washer (Figure 1).

In this method, the fixing bolts are glued to the sleeper to eliminate the need to retighten the bolts. A fastening washer is then inserted into the gap created by pressing the spring clip downward, and the rail is secured when the pressing force is removed. During maintenance, the fastening washer can be removed by pressing down on the spring clip again to loosen it. This rail fastening method can also be applied to rail fastening systems for ballastless tracks.
Additionally, to facilitate the fastening and loosening of the proposed method, a specialized tool has been devised (Figure 2). This allows fastening and loosening in approximately 5 seconds per location.