Fangbolt

The CI railway chair in the picture is a 3 hole DW&WR chair and is therefor quite old. In service railway chair could be broken by severe wheel flats of other impact loads. The two upstands on a railway chair are / were known in CIÉ as the jaw (the part where the rail rested against), and the gub (the part where the key rested against). Keys were usually tapered and made of wood or steel. Keeping keys tight in service was labour intensive. In later years a new type of steel key was introduced called a Panlock which was addressed to problem of loosening or falling out. Panlock keys, because of their dimensions were problematic at joints because of the fishplates. BH (Bull Head) track is obsolescent / obsolete in IÉ. Some may still exist in sidings or closed lines.

Railway chairs were cast in grey iron. In Ireland there were chairs with 2 holes, 3 holes and 4 holes. In plain track there were sometimes two types of chair used, the intermediate or common chair and the joint chair. Sometimes, the joint chairs wre handed e.g., Right hand and left hand. Joint chairs were always heavier than common chairs. Nearly all chairs have a rectangular base with rounded corners except for a CS1 type which was used on BH concrete sleepers and had an elliptical base. Common chairs weigh about 44 lbs and joint chairs are a bit heavier. Each railway had its own unique design of chair but most had the rails fixed by inserting a key on the outside of guage. The GNR(I) had some inside keyed track. The holes in the chairs were parallel except for those designed to take ferrules which had a tapered hole. CIÉ had inherited the following types of chair. The list is not exhaustive! DSE 3 hole DSE 4 Hole GSWR A and AJ GSWR B and BJ GSWR C and CJ GSWR D SRE / GNR(I) S1 GNR(I) OS1 SRE / GNR(I) S1J All of the chairs inclined the rails at 1:20 into guage.