Composite materials are abundantly present in applications related to transportation industries, mainly due to their lightweight, good mechanical performance, and viable production costs. In this sector, weight reduction represents a two-fold advantage as fuel consumption can be reduced, as well as passenger (or load) capacity can be enhanced. The use of natural fiber composites is an excellent option considering weight reduction and source renewability, already being done in many automotive and aerospace utilities, but specifically in railroad applications, their choice seems to be eclipsed by synthetic fibers, such as glass and carbon fibers. The objective of this work is to analyze the current situation on composite applications in the railroad industry, deriving a discussion that includes the aspects that hinder the use of natural fibers and also indicates the current status of greener composites even if not including natural fibers. The production costs of these natural fiberreinforced composites, when observed under a scalability scenario, associated with some specific properties of natural fibers (as flammability performance, for example) seem to be the reason for their rather infrequent consideration. Nevertheless, technology advancements related to production processes and innovative additives fabrication present an interesting prospect for future development in agreement with sustainability concerns.

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The texture formation, at each machining stage, in the CT45, CT50 and CT40X steels machined via two technological alternative ways has been investigated, these being as follows: (1) turning — grinding — superfinishing, (2) turning — hardening — grinding — superfinishing. Presented are the (110) pole figures obtained by the reflection method. It was shown that the grinding and superfinishing of the specimens in compliance with the alternative way 1 led to formation of the texture, the basal ideal orientations of which resemble that of rolling one for the [Russian Text Ignored].‐metals. The recrystallization (110) [001] component is therewith also contained in the grinding texture. No texture was recognized in specimens machined by the procedure according to the alternative way 2. These facts being accounted for by the pressure and temperature factors operating in the course of grinding and superfinishing, as well as by the dependence of the deformation mechanism of the steels under study on a preliminary machining of the latter.

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