Manufacturing industry of stainless steel railway vehicles has developed rapidly during the 12 th Five-Year Plan period.Traditional resistance spot welding method has some insuperable limitations

such as low appearance quality of the carbody

poor air tightness

and low productivity. While the partial penetration laser lap welding in stainless steel carbody has outstanding technical advantages compared with resistance spot welding. In this paper

a series of core technologies

key equipment and standard procedures were formulated based on the technical characteristics of laser welding in railway vehicles

including precision forming of parts

precision assembling of component

traceless welding process

intelligent quality monitoring

and nondestructive testing（NDT）. Besides

laser welding production lines and corresponding manufacture process system were established. The key technical issues of large-scale laser welding in manufacturing of stainless steel railway vehicles were analyzed

and the forecast and outlook for application prospect of laser welding technology in manufacturing industry of railway vehicles were made.