1. According to the form of sleeper support
(1) Suspended type: that is, the rail joint is suspended between two sleepers. This form of joint is used on China's railways. It has good force conditions, simple structure, and easy maintenance.
(2) Cushion type: that is, the rail joint is placed on the sleeper. This form of joint has high rigidity, is difficult to taper and is only used in special cases.
2. According to the position of the two rail joints to each other
(1) Relative type: that is, the joints of the two steel rails are opposite to each other. Its advantage is that the train runs relatively smoothly, and the two steel rails are evenly stressed. China's railways widely use suspended relative rail joints.
(2) Phase staggering: that is, the left and right of the two rail joints are staggered, but the phase error cannot be less than 3 m. This form doubles the number of train impacts, and the impact is eccentric, which will increase the sway of the train and easily cause diseases such as triangle pits.
3. According to the performance of rail joints
(1) Ordinary joint: that is, the coupling joint of two rails when the standard rail or non-standard rail is laid, and the splint and bolt are used to connect.
(2) Special-shaped joints: that is, joints of different types of rails connected to each other. In order to make the top surface of different rails and the inside of the head coincide,
Use the appropriate shaped splint and shaped pad to connect. Special-shaped joints of positive line rails must use special-shaped rails.
(3) Conductive joint: a connector for conducting rail current or as a traction current loop, which is used for automatic occlusion section and electric traction section. The inter-rail conduction coupling device is composed of two galvanized iron wires with a diameter of 5 mm, inserted into the round holes of the rail waist at the end of the two rails - plug nail type; Or a steel wire cable with a cross-section of about 100 mm² welded into the steel sleeve at the head of the rail - welded type.
(4) Insulation joint: On the automatic blocking section, insulating joints are provided at the rail joints at both ends of the adjacent blocking zone to ensure that the track circuit cannot be transmitted from one blocking zone to another. Generally, the insulation joint is separated by nylon rail head piece, nylon splint and nylon bolt sleeve to prevent current from passing through and play an insulating role.
(5) Welding joints: joints formed by rail welding by resistance welding, small gas pressure welding or thermite welding are mostly used for seamless lines.
(6) Frozen joint: This kind of joint is a frozen rail joint realized by improving frictional resistance. Its characteristics are: it does not change the structure of the current joint, does not use adhesives, does not use additional mechanical parts, and the joint resistance is high, enough to freeze the rail joint on the railway track in most areas.
(7) Sharp rail joint (i.e. temperature regulator): a rail joint used to connect ordinary tracks with a large amount of expansion at the rail end or a movable end track of the open bridge deck with a temperature span greater than 100 m. According to the different forms of structural planes, sharp rail joints can be divided into three types: oblique type, polyline type and curve type.