Railroad Spike Types| Dog Spike & Screw Spike

Rail Spike History

Railroad spike, also known as cut spike, is usually used in railway to fasten the steel rails tightly on the sleepers. The railroad spike is invented by Robert Livingston Stevens in early 19th century. At that time, English mainline use railways used heavy and expensive cast iron chairs to fasten T-shaped rails, while Stevens come with up an idea to add a supporting base to T rail that is fixed with a simple spike. In 1982, this spike has become the most common rail fastening in North America.

Railroad Spike Types

At the early times, dog spike is commonly used when wooden sleepers is paved on the railway. However, with the concrete sleepers popularized, screw spike is more and more widely used. Railroad spike is mainly classified into two types: dog spike, screw spike.

Dog Spike

A dog spike equal to a cut spike in function, it has a square section in horizontal direction with a pointed penetrating head, which is similar to a dog’s lugs. This is why it is called dog spike.

We can produce and manufacture different specification of dog spike, if you need other dog spike, we can also manufacture according to samples and drawings.

Screw Spike

As we can see, there is screw on the surface of screw spike, it usually used with a plastic sleeve which is casted in the concrete sleepers. Screw spike can be classified into four types, Ss series Sleeper Screw, Square head screw spike, Hexagon screw spike and Double-head screw spike.

Comparison of Dog Spike and Screw Spike

1.Shape and Classification 

Just look at the appearance of the two different spikes, we can see apparently that dog spike looks like a large nail with a dog lug head, while screw spike is with many screws on the surface of shank. The shape of dog spike is simple, and the classification of screw spike is various and the shape diversified.

2.Fastening Sleeper

Dog spike is only used in wooden sleepers, nevertheless, screw spike is used on concrete sleepers. With the trend that concrete sleepers more and more widely used in recent railway construction, screw spike is more popularized and the requiring number is increasing.

3.Inserting Method

In the past times, dog spike is usually driven into the wooden sleeper with a heavy hammer by hand. But now the manual work has been replace by the machine “spike driver”. The screw spike is usually fastened to the concrete sleeper through anchoring technology.

4.Fastening power

Screw spike is more tightened than dog spike. The fastening power of screw spike is more than twice of dog spike. In addition, screw spike is usually used with the plastic sleeve.

5.Costing

The manufacturing cost of screw is higher that of dog spike, because the manufacturing process of screw spike is more complex than dog spike.