Because the quality of the railway passenger seats is an important factor of ride comfort, many researches have been going on. It is said that in Japan ergonomic research of the railway passenger seats began to be taken up seriously in 1963. This paper deals with developments in these research efforts illustrating the major themes, but limited to one related to the seats of the express train. The period is divided into four stages: the first half of 1960s, the second half of the 1960s, the first half of the 1980s, and the 1990s. The early studies were focussed on fitting the seats to humans in terms of static environment, but later the trends moved gradually toward considering the dynamic environment.