Rolled steel rails for railways, metros, tramways and cranes, and the steel parts that join and hold them: fishplates, base plates, clips and bolts. A rail is designated by its profile, usually named after its mass per metre — 60E1, 54E1, R65, 115RE — and made in hard, wear-resistant pearlitic steel.
A railway rail has three parts: a head that the wheels run on, a tall thin web that gives it bending stiffness, and a wide foot that sits on the sleeper. Rails carry very high contact stresses from wheels, so they are made of high-carbon pearlitic steel — about 0.6–0.8% carbon — and, on heavily used track, with the head hardened by controlled cooling after rolling. Crane rails are shorter and wider, with a heavy head to spread the load of crane wheels on to a beam or a concrete runway.
Rails are rolled from blooms of vacuum-degassed steel on dedicated rail mills, straightened, inspected ultrasonically along their whole length and cut to length — 12 m, 18 m or 25 m for many markets, and up to 108 or 120 m for main lines, where long rails are flash-butt welded into continuous track. Only a limited number of mills worldwide roll main-line rails.
Each region has its own profiles. Europe uses the EN 13674-1 profiles (49E1, 54E1, 60E1 — the old S 49, UIC 54 and UIC 60), North America the AREMA profiles (115RE, 136RE, 141RE), Russia and the CIS the R50 and R65, China the 50 and 60 kg/m rails of GB/T 2585, and Japan the JIS 50N and 60. Crane rails follow DIN 536 (the A series), the American ASCE and CR sections, and the Russian KP and Chinese QU series.
Rails for the GCC are mostly imported, mainly from Europe, China, Japan and India. New railways and metros in the region, in the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, are generally specified to European practice with EN 13674-1 profiles and grades, while ports use heavy crane rails for container and gantry cranes.
The tables below give the foot width, head width, height and mass of the common profiles by region, with the other names under which the same profile is sold.
Full dimensions: Rail sections — dimensions and mass (EN 13674, DIN 536, AREMA, JIS, GOST)
| Region | Standard | What it covers |
|---|---|---|
| Europe | EN 13674-1 CEN-CENELEC |
Railway applications — track — rail: Vignole railway rails 46 kg/m and above (profiles and steel grades) |
| Europe | EN 13674-4 CEN-CENELEC |
Railway applications — track — rail: Vignole railway rails from 27 kg/m to, but excluding, 46 kg/m |
| Europe | EN 14811 CEN-CENELEC |
Railway applications — track — special purpose rail: grooved and associated construction |
| International | UIC 860 replaced by EN 13674-1 |
UIC leaflet — technical specification for the supply of rails |
| Germany | DIN 536-1 DIN |
Crane rails — dimensions, section parameters and steel grades for form A (flat-bottom) crane rails |
| USA | AREMA Chapter 4 | Manual for Railway Engineering — rail, including the RE profiles and specifications for steel rails |
| USA | ASTM A759 ASTM |
Carbon steel crane rails |
| USA | ASTM A1 ASTM |
Carbon steel tee rails |
| Japan | JIS E1101 JSA |
Flat-bottom railway rails and special rails for switches and crossings |
| China | GB/T 2585 SAC |
Hot-rolled steel rails for railways, 38 to 75 kg/m |
| Russia / CIS | GOST R 51685 | Railway rails — general specifications |
| India | IRS-T-12 | Indian Railway Standard specification for flat-bottom railway rails |
Grade equivalents and the standards bodies: Steel grades & standards
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