Various materials, such as concrete material, polymer (rubbers, plastics and paints), lubrication or adhesive materiel, materials for rail, wheel, bearing, brake contact strip and so on, and new materials such as super conductive materials, are being used or researched for future use in railway systems. When changes of themes of research and development concerning these materials and material technologies have been looked back for recent 25 years, themes on environmental consideration have been increased besides those on high performance or high economical efficiency. In some field, it has become no research planned because of stop of the use the materials concerned and so on. Finally, resent accomplishments in each research field have been introduced.

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