both the rail flange and the tie plate upper surface still further it should be appreciated that with respect to the geometry of fig1 the swage wings 17 18 will not resist upward pulling of the spike when it is time for replacement and pulling forces on the order of 8000 lbs have been found sufficient to dislodge the spike even after a period of actual track line testing since that removal force is not significantly greater than the typical 7000 lb force required to remove a well seated prior art spike there also is no need to further modify the spike pulling machinery of a railroad maintenance machine a second embodiment of the present invention is shown in fig1 and 14 wherein analogous parts are similarly numbered with the addition of a factor of one hundred the second embodiment has tapered side wedge shoulders 107 108 for a swaging above the left and right side walls of the spike and also a tapered rear shoulder 113 which preferably has an included angle u03c6 of 23 degrees plus or minus 3 degrees the intersection between the reinforcing section 111 and the rear wedge shoulder 113 is approximately 1 125 inches below the head 103 as shown in fig1 14 the horizontal dimension between the rear shank reinforcing surface 111 and the front shank reinforcing surface 117 preferably is between 0 875 inches and 1 006 inches as in the first embodiment the preferred dimension between the front shank surface 117 and the rear shank surface 116 is approximately 0 625 inches in order to illustrate use of a spike according to the second embodiment fig1 and 16 are rear elevation.