page_title: Fishplate
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Fishplate / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Bonded main line 6-bolt rail joint on a segment of 155lb Pennsylvania Special rail. Installed in the 1960's, located at Thorndale on the Amtrak Harrisburg Line.
context_page_description: In rail terminology, a fishplate, splice bar or joint bar is a metal bar that is bolted to the ends of two rails to join them together in a track. The name is derived from fish, a wooden bar with a curved profile used to strengthen a ship's mast. The top and bottom edges are tapered inwards so the device wedges itself between the top and bottom of the rail when it is bolted into place. In rail transport modelling, a fishplate is often a small copper or nickel silver plate that slips onto both rails to provide the functions of maintaining alignment and electrical continuity.
context_section_description: The device was invented by William Bridges Adams in May 1842, because of his dissatisfaction with the scarf joints and other systems of joining rails then in use. He noted that to form the scarf joint the rail was halved in thickness at its ends, where the stress was greatest. It was first deployed on the Eastern Counties Railway in 1844, but only as a wedge between the adjoining rails. Adams and Robert Richardson patented the invention in 1847, but in 1849 James Samuel, the engineer of the ECR developed fishplates that could be bolted to the rails.
caption: Electrically bonded main line 6-bolt rail joint on a segment of 155 lb/yd (76.9 kg/m) rail
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