The railway sleepers can be affixed to the rails by using appropriate fastenings. These fastenings get exposed to primarily dynamic vibrations, lateral, vertical, and longitudinal stresses, and thus the conventionally used rigid fastenings do not prove to be convenient to sustain these forces. So comes the elastic fastenings to the rescue and thus elastic rail clips are used to keep the rail in position.
Being used as a fastener, elastic rail clip is regarded as one of the major components in the rail construction sector. These are manufactured using forged spring steel and have numerous usages in the railroad. In the context of fastening, the sole responsibility of elastic rail clip is to secure steel rail and railway sleeper conjointly. It is eyed as one of the finest ways to ensure that steel rails don’t shift, crook, or warp.
These elastic rail clips can be used with other parts of the fastening system to achieve strength and toughness while laying the rail tracks.

Elastic rail clips are known to be used with railroad spikes in the railway fastening system. A railroad spike or simply rail spike is a sizeable large nail that is used to lock the base plates and rails to ties in the railway track. When used with an elastic rail clip, it proves to be an excellent combination to maintain a gauge between the running rails.

Rail pads are elastic polyurethane sheets used to protect the sleeper from wearing. They are inserted between sleepers and rails, affixed with elastic rail clips. The elastic rail clip and rail pad together provide a great amount of stiffness to the track structure.

One way to provide good understructure and support to the rail tracks is using elastic rail clips along with rail plastic dowels. A rail plastic dowel can be regarded as a fastening foundation in the rail fastening system as it needs to be embedded into the concrete sleeper prior congregation of other parts of the system.