Abstract: The friction and wear behavior between the wheel steels with four chemical composition and hot-rolled U71Mn rail steel was studied using a wheel/rail wear tester, and the effects of wheel steel composition and hardness on the wear behavior and wear mechanism were analyzed. The results show that with the increase of carbon content, the proeutectoid ferrite content reduced obviously, the pearlitic grain size increased, and the thickness of cementite lamella also increased in the microstructure of the wheel steel, resulting in the increase of wheel steel hardness. With the increase of wheel steel hardness, the wear loss of the wheel steel decreased and the main wear mechanism changed from abrasive wear and shallow delamination wear into deep delamination wear, while the wear loss of the rail steel increased and the main wear mechanism was shallow delamination wear.