The reasonable hardness matching of wheel/rail material can significantly improve the operation safety of the train.In order to explore the hardness matching behavior and mechanism of different wheel/rail materials,a MMS-2A friction and wear tester was used to perform corresponding matching tests on different wheel and rail materials.The results indicate that under the lower axle load,with the increasing of hardness ratio of the wheelrail materials,the wear mechanism of the wheelrail transforms from abrasive wear to fatigue wear and oxidation wear,and the wear resistance of wheel/rail materials is greatly improved.At a higher axle load,the contact stress is much larger,the increase of the wheelrail hardness ratio can significantly reduce the abrasive wear between the wheel/rail materials,and the overall wear resistance of the wheel/rail material is significantly improved.It could be concluded that it is reasonable to increase the wheel hardness from the perspective of reducing wear,especially for the heavyhaul condition.The reasonable hardness ratio of different wheel/rail materials is 1∶1.Finally,the future studies in hardness matching of wheel/rail materials are proposed.