Abstract: In the high-speed railway sector, a machine tool is used as a working machine for part processing.The relationship between high-speed rail and the machine tool industry is summarized in this paper, which is followed by a hierarchical analysis of the types of machinable parts of high-speed rail, and finally a summary of the selection principles for general and special machine tools when machining high-speed rail mechanical parts. Then, it introduces the current mainstream special machine tools on the selection of processing technology for machining parts of high-speed rail machinery such as rails, bogies and car bodies. Finally, the development trend of machine tools in the field of high-speed rail is forecasted.