Abstract: Understanding the law of metal deformation in railway wheel rolling process is an important basis for formulating and optimizing the rolling process of railway wheel. Taking HDSA wheel as the research object, the vertical rolling process was simulated by the finite element method, and the phenomena and rules of the wheel rim diameter expanding, rim width variation, deformation distribution, stress distribution and wheel plate thinning during wheel rolling were analyzed. The results show that the rim expanding speed reaches the maximum of 5.1 mm/round, when the wheel is rolled 13 rounds. The rim lateral spread reaches peak value during 14-18 rounds, and the maximum value is 5.5 mm. In the final rolling, the effective plastic strain decreases linearly with the increase of the depth within 25 mm of the initial tread, and the minimum strain is 0.23 at the depth of 31 mm. When the wheel is rolled, the main part of the wheel plate is tensile stress both in radial and circumferential direction, which causes the plate thinning, and the maximum thinning after the final rolling reaches 3.3 mm.