Tie plates transmit load from the rail to the ties underneath them, they provide the properly canted surface for the rail to sit on while maintaining the proper gauge. Spikes (cut spikes and screw spikes are some examples) are utilized to restrain the tie plates and secure the rail to the tie.

Missing and high spikes degrade the overall performance of the fastening system and thus their detection is an important railway inspection task.

Also, tie plates can eventually cut into the tie they are sitting on due to the load being applied as trains run over the track. This plate cutting affects the integrity of the ties and it is important to inspect and measure the amount of plate cut for each tie.

Pavemetrics’ LRAIL simplifies the tie inspection task by using Artificial Intelligence to analyze both 2D and 3D data in order to more accurately detect and report plate type, plate cut, spike type and whether spikes are missing or higher than an allowable threshold. Spike patterns can also be determined, to flag pattern changes or detect missing spikes.