Method for detecting rail switches degradation and failures, the method having the steps of applying a Discrete Wavelet Transform to stored measurement data relative to a switch move to be analysed and obtaining a feature vector associated with said switch move and including Discrete Wavelet Transform coefficients delivered by the applied Discrete Wavelet Transform; comparing the obtained feature vector with feature vectors associated with rail switch moves previously obtained and associating each to a respective health class among several given health classes; and determining a health class for the said switch move to be analyzed by selecting one of the health classes associated with the previously obtained feature vectors based upon the comparison step.