According to the Agreement for establishing of a high performance railway network in South East Europe (Official Gazette of RS nr.102/2007), initiative has been set up in Republic of Serbia to fulfil all measures defined in the Agreement. Increasing driving speed in the existing railway track conditions requires improvement of superstructure elements, especially of rail fastening, the role of which is to transfer load from rails to the sleepers with retaining pulling force as long as possible. Significant attention, in the process of track construction and future maintenance, should be given to thorough analysis of modern fastening types and their unification on Serbian Railways network. It is even more important as nowadays exist plenty of different types.
Position of UIC is that selection of rail fastenings should be left to the national railway administrations. Selection of the manufacturer/type of rail fastening and it’s installation and inspection during the exploitation should be result of compatibility between technical (permanent) track elements and fastening features, which is subject of this report. Technical parameters, concerning the track are: axis load, driving speed, track geometry (situation and levelling), superstructure features (rail and sleeper types), modes of installation and level of mechanized maintenance. Elastic rail fastening characteristics which are relevant for manufacturer/type selection are: constructive elements of considered system (mass, tensile strength, material in use and it’s properties), purchasing price, installation simplicity, changes of it’s characteristics during exploitation and maintenance costs.
This report will consider elastic rail fastening systems for concrete sleepers manufactured by Pandrol (UK) and Vossloh (Germany), which are leaders in technical improvement and development of high speed railways tracks on Europe railway network. Some of these fastening systems were also applied on Serbian Railways network. Experiences gained through installation and exploitation are also included in this report.

elastic /resilient rail fastening, installation, exploitation, maintenance