The Railway Technical Research Institute of Japan Railway (JR) group was inaugurated in December 1986 as the successor of the research and development institute of the former Japanese National Railways. We celebrated the twentieth anniversary in December 2006. At his epoch, we reviewed the research and development activity on track technology and surveyed the condition of practical uses and the needs of further improvement. The importance of consideration about life cycle costing, life cycle assessment and risk management was also stressed for the future track technology development.

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