The LNER Encyclopedia

Regular readers of this forum will know that I live in a former station on the ECML, and I often find buried bits and pieces in my garden, such as short pieces of rail, chairs, broken fishplates etc. In fact its a wonder they have enough bits left for their railway!
2 things have got me puzzled however, and I would be grateful if anyone can identify them. The thing on the left is obviously a spring key for bullhead track, but why has it got the 4" long spike at one end? It has been manufactured like this and the spike has not been added at a later date.
The second thing is the object on the right. It has 2 holes at 4" centres and looks like some sort of fishplate, but is a very unusual section, and has a small lug on the bottom at one end.
I have shown these bits to quite a few people, and no-one has come up with a convincing answer yet.

I wonder if the thing with the lug is a joint piece for bridge rail section.
Bridge rail was the type of rail that had a cross section like a bowler hat if you get my drift. We weld it across the joint for crane rail but i wonder if it was bolted when in railway use.

The larger object with the two holes is part of a breather switch/expansion joint.

No idea what the other thing is. If it's a bullhead key, the “gap” in the key which the mysterious spike fills is there to allow flexibility for the wedging action of the key - so the spike negates that function; from the size and shape it could be meant to be a handle for placing the key into its initial position but it then gets in the way of driving it in with a hammer (it would be on the outside edge, away from rail web); for the same reason of positioning, it’s not going to align along the rail web to hold it in any position. Very odd.

[quote="Bullhead"]The larger object with the two holes is part of a breather switch/expansion joint.

Thanks for that, now if I only knew what a breather switch was..............!

60041 wrote:Thanks for that, now if I only knew what a breather switch was..............!

Yes that's it, mine is only 2 hole but otherwise it is the same. Thank you for your help.
Now I just have the problem with the Key.

Perhaps the key was just somebody having a little welding practice.

Sir Brian