Abstract: The railway information technology developed from the single section-ranked elementary application primarily in the data processing to today’s integrated application referring to every sections，covering all the railway roads and processing in real time. This paper summarizes the background of Chinese railway information construction, introduces the achievement of railway information infrastructure construction including data traffic network covering all the roads and the data processing flat，and the application system construction including the selling and booking
railway ticket system, the auto-recognizing vehicle number system,the transport information management system, and train directing system.
Finally it forecasts the fine foreground of railway information construction, sticking to the high outset and level,seizing the jumping-development opportunity，achieving the noticeable rise in the transport capacity, transport organization efficiency and the transport service quality, and bringing into play as the backbone in the modern integranted transport system.

Key words: railway information technology, railway information infrastructure construction, the application system construction

摘要： 中国铁路信息技术从单项的、部门级的以数据处理为主的初级应用，发展到今天涉及各业务领域的、覆盖全路的、实时处理的综合应用，本文综述了中国铁路信息化建设的背景，介绍了覆盖全路的数据通信网、初具规模的信息处理平台等铁路信息化基础设施建设成果和铁路客票发售和预订系统、车号自动识别系统、运输管理信息系统、列车指挥系统等应用系统建设的成果，展望了铁路信息化建设坚持高起点、高层次，实现跨越式发展的历史机遇，实现运输能力的显著增长、运输组织效率的普遮提高和运输服务质量的全面提升，更好地发挥铁路在现代综合运输体系中骨干作用的美好前景.

关键词: 铁路信息技术, 信息化基拙设施建设’, 应用系统建设