Improvements in or appertaining to Rail or Tramway Rail Joints.
Year: 1898

page_text: Date of Application, 25th Oct., 1898
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION.
Improvements in or appertaining to Rail or Tramway Rail Joints.
I, HECTOR FREEMAN GULLAN, of Vanhaut, Hoylake, in the County of Chester,
Associate Member of the Institute of Civil Engineers, do hereby declare the
nature of this invention to be as follows:-
:-
Railway and tramway rails wear out first at their ends, and a large amount of
oscillation and shaking of the railway stock is caused by unevenness of joints.
The main reasons for this, are, first, that the ends of the two rails meet at a
given line transverse to the axis of the rail, and secondly at this line, owing to
expansion and contraction, there is generally of necessity a slight gap left between
the rails, especially in cold weather. At this line therefore the rail is weakest
and it in time gets crushed by the pounding it gets at this point.
Now my invention is designed to so arrange the rails that there shall be no
given transverse line of this nature by forming a lengthy splice so arranged that at
every portion of that splice the rail is almost as strong or even stronger than it is
at the centre point of the rail.
In carrying out my invention I form the ends with a long splice preferably ex--
tending over several feet. The body of the rail is slightly bent to one side so
that the two webs of the rail shall overlap in the centre at that part where they
lie in the chair and beyond this they are tapered. I also so arrange these webs in
pressing or stamping the splice that there shall be an embayment or portion in-
dented in each web so that the actual joint between the two webs shall be only
for a comparatively narrow distance round this embayment. The two webs being
parallel in the chair, no amount of expansion and contraction alters the width of
the rail in the chair, and consequently the web is not affected. These two points
the embayment and the parallel webs in the chair, while they are tapered beyond
the chair, constitute very important parts of my invention. I place two bolts.
through the splice on each side of the chair, the chair being in the centre of the
splice for the splice to rest on. The splice can end in a point but I prefer it
to end with a blunt rounded end so that there shall be no chance of being bent
or curled up. I cut out a corresponding piece in the side of the other rail for
the end of the one rail to fit into, consequently the splice resembles a very elon-
gnted Z or a line with two short curves at each end. The extreme ends are shaved
off or made slightly lower than the rest of the rail so that the wheels shall not
touch them; thus jolting through the wheel coming forcibly in contact with them
is avoided. By this means I can do without fish plates altogether, though
in some cases I may use one or two fish plates as well. In such case how-
ever I employ an additional pair of bolts or have one of the two pair of
bolts on each side of the chair placed beyond the splice so that
the completed splice rail shall be actually stronger throughout than the solid
rail itself. The bolt holes are preferably elongated in the usual manner so as to
allow for expansion and contraction of the rail. I form the splice rail ends either
by a special rolling device with grooves in the rolls of varying depth so as to form
'

page_text: the section required, or preferably I press the ends out to the right shape while
hot under a hydraulic press or in some cases the ends may be sawn or otherwise
cut to the required shape.
Tated the 24th day of October 180Q
Improvements in or appertaining to Rail or Tramway Rail Joints.
I, HECTOR FREEMAN GULLAN, of Vanhaut, Hoylake, in the County of Chester,
Associate Member of the Institute of Civil Engineers, do hereby declare the
nature of this invention and in what manner the same is to be performed, to be
particularly described and ascertained in and by the following statement:-
-
This invention relates to the class of scarf or lap joints in railway rails, wherein
the joint is produced by cutting or forming the two rails so that the joint between
the two lateral faces of the overlapping rails extends obliquely across the crown
of the rail.
Heretofore, so far as I am aware, when a joint of this kind has been employed
in I- rails, or T-rails, commonly employed on railways, the rail has been sliced
obliquely in a vertical plane, the cut extending obliquely through the web
as well as through the head and base of the rail.
The object of the present invention is to employ this oblique form of scarf
joint, and at the same time to avoid the objections commonly urged against such
joints, one of which is that it is structurally weak owing to the cutting away
of the web. This object is effected by so forming the rail that the web. is
obliquely deflected laterally at the ends of the rail which overlap in
forming the joint, and thereby not only extends to the extreme
ends of the rail but has a good thickness throughout. Thus, by the
application of the deflected web of one rail to that of the other, the
rail is made as strong at the joint as at any other part. This oblique deflection
of the web laterally at its overlapping portions so that the line of the web at
this point, when the rail is seen in plan, does not follow the longitudinal axis
of the rail but is laterally oblique thereto, following more nearly the course
or obliquity of the joint, formis the characteristic feature of this invention.
The accompanying drawings illustrate an embodiment of the invention. In
-these-
Figure 1 is a side elevation of the rails at the joint;
Figure 2.is a plan of the same;
Figure 3 is a horizontal section along the line of the bolts;
Figure 4 is a plan on a smaller scale, showing two joints in the rails;
Figure 5 is a transverse section at line in Figures
and 2;
Figure 6 is a transverse section at line in Figures 1 and 2.
In these drawings, A A represent two I-rails constructed at their adjacent ends
to form a joint with a lap splice, they being supported in a chair B at the splice.
C is the key between the chair and the rail. Each rail A has a head a, a foot a',
and a web a², and the ends of the rail are so formed as to adapt them for forming
the splice-joint. In Figure 4, both ends of the rail are shown, the middle portion
being mainly broken away for lack of room.
It will be noted (Figures 2 and 3) that when the rail is seen in plan, the vertical
plane of the joint extends obliquely across the rail, that the securing bolts D
pass through slotted holes in the webs of the overlapping rails, that the portions a³

page_text: of the webs that overlap at the joint are deflected laterally and obliquely so
that they may not be cut away or thinned too much in forming the bevel for
the splice, that the outer faces of the two overlapping webs a³ at the chair B,
or middle portion of the joint, are parallel, that there is an offset a in the
outer face of each web, from which offset to the extremity of the rail the web is
thinner than in the main part, and that at every point along the length of the
lap-splice the thickness of the two lapped webs is greater than the thickness of
the normal web a². This imparts strength to the rail at the splice and is due
to the lateral deflection of the lapped parts of the webs of the rails.
To form the ends of the rails as shown they may be passed through properly
shaped roller dies while hot. Preferably there will be formed a slight trough-
like hollow or channel in the applied faces of the webs a³, as seen at y (Figures 5
and 6) so as to permit the heads and bases of the rails to come together snugly
and to reduce the friction between the surfaces in contact when they move on
each other in expanding and contracting, and the crowns of the rails at their
extreme ends may be slightly cut away or rounded off, as seen at z, to guard
against this thinned extremity projecting upward above the level of the
adjacent rail.
The last few inches of the thin end of the rail is shaved off on the top so that
there shall be no chance of the wheel coming in contact with the end of the
rail and so causing a jar. I prefer not to employ fish plates at the joint and to
place the joint over a chair. It is obvious however that the joint can be placed
between two chairs and that fish plates can be employed. In this case I prefer
to have very long fish plates and six bolts or else only four bolts but the two
outside bolts to be beyond the splice. By this means the splice is stronger than
any other part of the rail instead of being weaker.
Having now particularly described and ascertained the nature of my said
invention and in what manner the same is to be performed, I declare that what
I claim is:-
1. A railway rail having its extremities adapted for forming a scarf joint without
unduly thinning the web, said rail having the end portion of its web deflected
to one side and the end portions of its head and base cut away at the opposite
side substantially as set forth.
2. A railway rail splice joint having its central portion parallel in the web
and supplied with a chair substantially as described whereby no amount of
creeping in the rail will affect the lateral strain on the chair substantially as
described.
3. In combination with a rail scarf joint substantially as described and
illustrated the formation of the ends of the rail with the upper surface cut
away to a gradual slope whereby there is no chance of a projecting end of the
rail causing a jolt.
4. A splice rail joint substantially as described having the surfaces of one
or both rails where they adjoin each other cut away so as to form an embayment
whereby creeping of the rail is facilitated and the joint is more perfect.
Dated this 23rd day of February 1899.
WM. P. THOMPSON & Co.,
Patent Agents, of Liverpool, Birmingham, Manchester, & London.